Monday, May 17, 2010
The DEA and its Fallacious Reasoning on Drugs in Mexico
By Patrick Corcoran
Anthony Placido, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration's (DEA) intelligence boss, recently testified to Congress about Mexico’s future following
Felipe Calderón’s exit from the national stage:
No one knows who will be the next [president] and if we will have the same desire to pursue criminals…. At
an operational tactical level, we would want to take down the cartel bosses over the next two years.
Placido has made similar noises
about ramping up his agency’s operations in the past. From last July:
[Calderón’s] fighting the clock…. He's really got to deliver a death blow, or significant body blow,
in the short-term to keep the public engaged.
As to the dangers posed by the
next president, the most relevant question is whether there is cause for worry. It’s possible that Calderón’s
successor could let drug gangs run wild, but very unlikely.
Though much has been made of
the uniqueness of Calderón’s commitment to fighting drugs, the reality today isn’t all that out of line with past
presidencies. Ever since President Miguel de la Madrid [1982-1988] declared drug traffickers a national security threat in
the 1980s, the undeniable trend has been toward evermore involvement and cooperation between the US and Mexico.
At this point, US-Mexico security
cooperation is not a matter of a personal connection with Calderón; it’s an institutionalized feature of the bilateral
relationship. Furthermore, any Mexican president knows that remaining on good terms is the principal measure of his foreign
policy, and that the easiest way for a Mexican president to find himself on rocky terrain with the US is to break sharply
with the standard anti-drug philosophy.
One also wonders if there are,
among the presidential contenders, specific possibilities that worry Placido? While Enrique Peña Nieto or Marcelo Ebrard might
not be as rhetorically strident in their conduct of anti-drug policies as Calderón is, unless Placido has some compromising
information that he’s not sharing, the idea of them hammering out a pact with the narcos is close to unthinkable.
Unlike a generation ago, the
industry today is fragmented into many different spheres of influence, and there is no single figure capable of wrangling
all the different groups into an agreement with the government. Furthermore, according to most polls, Mexico’s public
still supports an aggressive anti-crime policy, and as soon as a given region sees a spike in violence that local forces are
unable to control, local pols start clamoring for the federal police or the army.
In short, a vigorous federal
anti-drug policy is favored by the inertia of the status quo and has the broad acceptance of Mexico’s political class.
The differences between Calderón
and his successor, therefore, are more likely to be ones of degree and tone rather that radical changes in direction. Even
small alternations might make DEA operations in Mexico more fraught, but it’s hard to imagine that they alone will radically
change the nature of anti-drug policy.
One also wonders how the panorama
in Mexico would be different if Placido’s fantasy for a productive final two years becomes a reality, and Mexico arrests
a handful of its most wanted men.
Here, the past offers some indication.
Under President Vicente Fox [2000-2006], Mexico delivered a series of body blows, arresting Osiel Cárdenas and Benjamín Arellano,
and killing the latter’s brother Ramón. Yet this did nothing to slow the continued decline in Mexico’s security,
nor did it make drugs significantly less available in the US. So even if the DEA manages to pull off a major coup, beyond
the satisfaction and some positive press, what would be the benefit?
There is a case to be made that
it is in Mexico’s interest to take down the biggest capos, so as to bring about an industry-wide shift toward a more
defensive modus operandi. (Indeed, I’ve made it.)
But the DEA isn’t a Mexican
security agency, and it’s hard to imagine any “body blows” helping the DEA to fulfill its mission of “enforc[ing] the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States….”
There is no scenario by which Mexico’s drug industry will cease to exist or American users will be deprived of their
fix.
As you pick apart comments
like Placido’s, the futility of the DEA’s objectives comes into ever-starker relief. An actual death blow for
drug traffickers en masse in Mexico is about as likely as a dinner of unicorn tacos. Beyond body shots and other ephemeral
victories, once you look further into the future, whether Calderón or his polar opposite is in power in Mexico, whether ten
capos a year are arrested or zero, the results of the drug war can be measured only by different magnitudes of failure.
——————————
Patrick Corcoran (corcoran25@hotmail.com) is a writer who resides in Torreón, Coahuila. He blogs
at Gancho (http://www.ganchoblog.blogspot.com/).
