AVOIDING THE COLOMBIA 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.