Taking Down the Tupac Amaru: The Best and Worst of Counterterrorism

Many informed observers are citing the Peruvian governments operation to rescue hostages held by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) at the Japanese Ambassadors residence in Lima, Peru as a textbook success. These observers are already holding up the operation as a standard of counterterrorism (CT) excellence rivaling the Israeli rescue at Entebbe and the German rescue in Somalia. Are these observers right