Ecuador Pulls Assange's Plug

Ecuador announced that it had cut off internet access for Julian Assange, who of course is holed up in that country's embassy in London. This is all kinds of interesting. Here is the official statement.

Some thoughts:

1. Rafael Correa does not want to have any fingers pointed at him about facilitating interference in the U.S. election. I can't blame him because it is a mess. But he also does not want any future U.S. administration doing a quid pro quo.

2. Wikileaks says John Kerry pressured Ecuador to make this decision. The official statement makes a point of saying the country makes foreign policy decisions on its own, a clearly annoyed reference to this.

3. I don't know what "pressure" there was, but there certainly was communication between the U.S. and Ecuador, and the U.S. got what it wanted. This marks a success of President Obama's overall engagement strategy in Latin America. One of the hallmarks of this strategy is to engage even with countries that at times (or even often) are adversarial.

4. Assange is becoming a headache for Correa, who has not reaped many benefits of his presence. I figure he'd like to kick him out, but the costs of that are even higher.