The Third Front: Obama’s Action in Yemen Would Put Zapatero on Spot

The attack by a bourgeois terrorist threatens Janet Napolitano and Leon Panetta in Washington and could cause a radical shift in the president’s policies against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The first test will arrive sooner than expected for the European Union’s new and complex power-sharing system, and above all for the “politics of peace” espoused by President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Minister of Defense Carme Chacón — as reported by El Semanal Digital. Despite Zapatero’s wish to focus the co-presidency of the European Union on the economy, the attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 has caused a radical shift in Washington and could expand the United States’ military operations against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Yemen.

Until now, the Obama administration had stopped applying the term “war on terrorism” to its campaign against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It also made efforts to combine military action with some diplomatic measures. But this approach could change given the fact that there was a near massacre on Christmas Day, and that the attack was planned in Yemen. Then add Obama’s extreme vexation at the primary conclusion of the report he was given: Security services did have sufficient information to prevent the failed attack in Detroit. All of this could lead him to toughen his strategy.

Napolitano and Panetta in Trouble

Despite criticism, Obama decided not to interrupt his vacation in Hawaii, although he will convene a special summit in Washington on Tuesday, where the most vulnerable figures are Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and CIA Director Leon Panetta. According to The Washington Post, the reports already in Obama’s possession may give details as to how the agencies failed to share information about the Nigerian accused of attempting the attack.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, son of a well-known banker, tried to detonate an explosive known as PETN, which he had hidden in his underwear while on a plane carrying 290 passengers from Amsterdam to Detroit. The incident was prevented through the intervention of several passengers. According to the newspaper, no agency checked to see if Abdulmutallab had a visa to enter the United States after his father had alerted the U.S. embassy in Nigeria last month of his concern about his son’s disappearance and his frequent visits to Yemen.

There Were Two Clues

According to The Washington Post and The New York Times, the National Security Agency had intercepted electronic communications from Yemen indicating that an unidentified Nigerian was being trained for an al-Qaida mission. Other messages indicated that an attack was being planned for Christmas. For Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security, this was mainly a problem of reaction.

“Obviously, when you have a father coming in and talking to the embassy about a son [who] was radicalized, and gives the embassy the passport numbers, the first thing you would think is that a very fast effort to see if the person has got a visa and suspend the visa. And I guess you get a little bit of a sense that people took their time, which I think may lie at the core of the problem,” he told CNN.

Without awaiting the investigation results, the CIA vigorously defended itself against accusations that it did not properly share information about the Nigerian.

Warning by Dennis Blair and the Third Front

According to the agency spokesperson, the father’s warning was transmitted to the National Counterterrorism Center, the agency responsible for coordinating U.S. intelligence activities since September 11, 2001, and which, according to some, is at the center of the problems.

For his part, Dennis Blair, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, said that the next attacks will be more difficult to prevent since al-Qaida is learning more and more about U.S. systems of defense — and they will work to avoid them. All of these matters will be evaluated by Obama, who could, after Afghanistan and Iraq, widen the anti-al-Qaida circle to include Yemen. Zapatero, who claimed to be the European leader who got along best with Obama, could once again be facing a dilemma about what position to take if a new military front is opened, just as he is assuming a now rather toxic European Union presidency.