THE STING MEXICANS CAN'T FORGIVE

"More than one person has his nose out of joint about this," says one drug
official of Casablanca,the undercover operation mounted on Mexico soil by
U.S. Customs and the Department of Justice without the authorization of the
Mexican government. The sting netted 167 people, including 26 Mexiean
bankers, on charges of money laundering.

Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the czar of the U.S. antinarcotics effort, found
out about the operation on television. Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright was kept out of the loop and complained bitterly to Treasury
Seeretary Robert E. Rubin, who himself is said to have been informed about
the operation only a few months ago, even though the investigation was
initiated three years ago by the L.A. branch of Customs, It seems that even
the Casa Blanca (White House) was in the dark about the details. The result
is the most serious crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations since the Drug
Enforcement Administration kidnapped Humberto A1varez Machain, a Mexican
implicated in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

The Casablanea incident occurs at a time when constructive voices are
increasingly drowned out by a neo-populist coalition hurling rocks south of
the border all year round; by a relentless torrent of harsh U.S. press
coverage of Mexico, and by an ever more: vitriolic certification process in
the U.S. Congress. For the average Mexican, the collective harangue of
Sens. Dianne Feinstein. (D-Calif.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Trent Lott
(R-Miss.), consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Patrick J. Buchanan, Ross Perot
and Rep, Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), has fused into one hostile and
threatening picture of the United States. Casablanca is the straw that
breaks the camel's back.

Although President Bill Clinton and his Cabinet rushed to make apologies to
their Mexican counterparts, "I'm sorry" was not enough for Mexico's
foreign-relations minister, Rosario Green, whose reputation as an old-style
Mexican nationalist is coming to the fore. Green brushed off U.S.
apologiest for what she knows was an unintentional blunder and, instead,
escalated the conflict. She threatened to indict the U.S. Customs officers
who conducted undercover operations on Mexican soil without permission and
to begln extradition proceedings. Under Mexican law, a sting is considered
illegal entrapment. Her stance has inflamed a Washington community that
wishes Mexico would show half as much passion for extraditing drug
traffickers.

Mexico's escalation of the conflict left senior White House officials
stunned and wondering whether or not the Mexicans know who their friends
are in Washington. Clinton has many flaws, but if there is one area in
which he has behaved as a statesman, it has been in U.S.-Mexico relations.
He has taken it on the chin for the North American Free Trade Agreement,
the peso crisis and has defended bilateral antidrug efforts. But it may be
especially difficult for Clinton to go to the mat to defend bilateral
relations against critics in Congress, particularly Republican critics in
an election season, if the Mexicans are sticking it in the U.S. eye.

The Kabuki dance of injured pride and face-saving seemed to end at the U.N.
summit on drugs. After delivering a blistering speech criticizing U.S.
unilateralism and proposing a U.N.-led, global certification process,
President Ernesto Zedillo met privately with Clinton to alleviate
frictions. The annual Binational Commission reunion of the two countries'
Cabinets, which met a week later in Washington, also stressed the positive.
But lingering tensions surfaced in A1bright's closing press briefing, at
which she warned Mexico against pursuing the extradition of U.S. agents.
Thus, a seemingly happy ending to the Casablanca affair may not be Act IV,
but intermission.

Meanwhile, Sen. Max Baucus ( D-Mont. ) introduced a resolution urging
Clinton to defend U.S. Customs agents against any extradition effort, and
some congressional staffers say it will pass if it reaches the floor. This
is an ominous prospect given that wavering senators who will have to vote
on the matter of certification in nine months, may wonder how they can
support certification when the Mexicans seem determined to make themselves
obnoxious.

Mexican calculations go beyond Casablanca to include the possibility that
certification next. year may not be winnable or winnable at an unacceptably
high price. The prospect that Congress may overturn a presidential
recommendation to certify Mexico is looming. Even if a presidential veto
were exercised and sustained, such a victory would be Phyrric. "We have to
inoculate ourselves," explains one Mexican foreign ministry official, who
acknowledges that the government is considering a variety of contingencies.
The threat to investigate U.S. agents is just one sign that the Mexican
government is contemplating new options in anticipation of U.S. hostility.
Mexico is approaching a turning point where the political cost of
subjecting itself to U.S. imprecations in the name of cooperation may be
hiBher than the cost of alienating the United States. Mexico's presidential
candidate selection season will beBin early in 1999, and continued
confrontation feeds a nationalist backlash that aides candidacies hostile
to the U.S.

Ironically, confrontation is looming at a time when there are signs of
progress in the drug war. The leaders of a major Mexican methamphetamine
cartel, the four Amezcua brothers, recently were captured. Significantly,
the Mexican police team that made the arrests is one of the new, vetted
antinarcotics groups pintly trained by Mexico and the United States. The
fruits of building new Mexican law-enforcement institutions take years to
mature, but the Amezcua arrest suggests that patience is warranted by a
U.S. Congress searching for results.

Mexico needs to come to grips with the reality of the global drug trade. It
speaks often and eloquently about the need to acknowledge the global nature
of drugrelated crime, but its behavior is not consistent with its analysis.
It makes no sense to turn law enforcement issues such as the extradition of
vicious criminals into points of national pride. Undercover U.S. Customs
agents are not the moral equivalent of drug traffickers, nor should they be
treated as egregious law breakers by the Mexican government. By failing to
modernize its notion of national sovereignty, Mexico has been unable to
come to grips with the realities of binational law the Mexican government.
By failing to modernize its notion of national sovereignty, Mexico has been
unable to come to grips with the realities of binational law enforcement
and leaves itself open to charges of a lack of will. Why must pint
operational capabilities in law enforcement, which is what is really needed
to be effective against transnational criminals, founder on the rock of
outdated notions of sovereignty?

In the aftermath of Casablanca, Uhe United States must reassess the lack of
coordination in the bilateral relationship. "Nobody is in charge of Uhe
U.S. government," one U.S. Cabinet officer says, referring to inter-agency
snarls inside the Beltway and to the abduction of policy toward Mexico by
semi-autonomous lawenforcement agencies such as U.S. Customs and the DEA.
An accident-prone U.S. policy toward Mexico will have a high cost as the
potential for a nationalist backlash grows south of the border.

Similarly, a reassessment of US. law enforcement is in order. Undisciplined
unilateralism and bilateral cooperation are incompatible. The U.S. would
not accept unilateral foreign operations in its territory. Why should we
expect the Mexicans to behave differently? That Mexicans worry about our
blithe disregard for the rules of the game says nothing about their
commitment to combating drug trafficking and everything about their need
for assurances that we will not abuse our superior power.

Both Mexico and the United States are reaching the limits of their ability
to absorb the political costs of sustaining bilateral antinarcotics
cooperation. The United States brought the relationship close to the brink
with a unilateral police action, and now the Mexicans are taking it to Uze
edge with unilateral diplomatic outrage. It is time for all sides to step
back from the brink, for congressmen and diplomats alike to stop playing
politics wiUh bilateral relations and to start examining their conscience.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)