AVOIDING THE COLOMBIAN QUAGMIRE

Colombian President Andres Pastrana has, for now, averted an escalation in
his country's conflict with leftist guerrillas--a near-miss that
underscores the stakes for U.S. policy in that nation.

Meeting in rebel-held territory Friday with the leader of the largest
guerrilla group, Pastrana managed to jump-start formal peace talks that
have been suspended since November. Had he failed, Pastrana would have been
under intense pressure to launch a military offensive aimed at retaking
territory he ceded to the rebels in 1998. That would have meant war, and a
crisis for the Bush administration.

President Bush has inherited the ill-considered war-on-drugs package known
as Plan Colombia. Passed with bipartisan support in Congress, it aims to
spend $1.3 billion over two years on a military effort to eradicate cocaine
production.

This is not a war on Colombian rebels, the Clinton administration insisted,
it is a war on drugs. Yet many Colombians see the U.S. involvement as a
not-so-subtle attack on leftist rebels who are aligned with drug
traffickers and control a Switzerland-sized chunk of Colombia. The bulk of
the money goes to the Colombian armed forces, which have been linked to
right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for thousands of political
murders committed there.

George W. Bush supported Plan Colombia during the presidential campaign.
But the Bush administration has also shown an early willingness to look
before it leaps. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got it exactly right
when he said, at his Senate confirmation hearing a month ago, that the
nation's drug problem can most effectively be reduced by drying up demand
rather than waging war on foreign drug traffickers.

"If demand persists, it's going to find ways to get what it wants,"
Rumsfeld observed. "And if it isn't from Colombia, it's going to be from
someplace else."

That's exactly right, and it's making Colombia's neighbors very jittery.
The U.S. attempt to fumigate drug crops in Colombia and militarize the
crackdown on drug lords may push the drug trade into Brazil, Ecuador, Peru
and Panama. Result: Colombia's neighbors will be destabilized and drugs
will still make their way to America as the U.S. gets sucked into the war.

It's not too late to reconsider Plan Colombia. Pastrana's agreement to
resume formal peace negotiations buys some time. The Bush administration
should use that time to rethink this risky piece of Clinton legacy.