The threat from Yemen
It was inevitable that al-Qaeda's failed bomb plot would provoke cries of "send in the drones." And, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is considering just that:
The foiled mail bombing plot by suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen has added urgency to an Obama administration review of expanded military options that include putting elite U.S. hunter-killer teams that operate secretly in the country under Central Intelligence Agency authority.Officials said support was growing both within the military and the administration for shifting more operational control to the CIAâ??a move that would allow the U.S. to strike suspected terrorist targets unilaterally with greater stealth and speed.
Allowing the U.S. military's Special Operations Command units to operate under the CIA would give the U.S. greater leeway to strike at militants even without the explicit blessing of the Yemeni government. In addition to streamlining the launching of strikes, it would provide deniability to the Yemeni government because the CIA operations would be covert. The White House is already considering adding armed CIA drones to the arsenal against militants in Yemen, mirroring the agency's Pakistan campaign.
The question with drone strikes is not whether the U.S. will launch them into Yemen (it's been before and will almost certainly be done again) but the scope and pace of the campaign. The desire to hit al-Qaeda has to be weighed against the prospect that an intense campaign of drone attacks will destabilize an already weak government and multiply the number of people with blood feuds against the U.S.
UPDATE: Andrew Exum has some worthwhile thoughts on the matter:
You'll remember that last week, concerning Central Africa, I wrote that policy-makers should ask four questions -- in sequence -- before considering an intervention:1. Will an intervention make the situation better, or worse?
2. If better, should the U.S. government participate in this intervention?
3. If yes, should the U.S. government lead this intervention?
4. If yes, what should the U.S. government do?
Reading the Wall Street Journal on the way into work this morning, I could not help but notice the focus has been almost exclusively on Question #4. Typically, we Americans are always asking ourselves, What is our government doing? (And why isn't it doing more!)
Though I am not a Yemen expert, I have spent more time in 2010 elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula than in any other year, including two trips to Saudi Arabia and one to the UAE. I got the opportunity, during both of these trips, to speak to a variety of policy-makers in each country, and one of the things I wish U.S. reporters would do more of is ask some of Yemen's neighbors how they would solve the problems of Yemen. This latest plot was apparently tipped off by Saudi intelligence (BTW: shukran, ya ikhwani) and involved bombs passing through both Qatar and the UAE. So the other nations in the region have a bigger interest than we do in shepherding the demise of AQAP.
(AP Photo)
