ON THE BRINK OF FAILURE

Oh, down in Mexico

I never really been so I don't

really know

Oh, Mexico

I guess I'll have to go

. James Taylor

With President Obama meeting with Mexico's president this week for
the second time in four months to discuss guns, drugs and money
laundering, the world ponders Mexico's future. To be sure, Mexico is
not a "failed state," but as Latin American scholar Shannon O'Neil
suggests, in a recent Foreign Affairs article, it may be "on the brink."

Mexico has a democratically elected government, and a relatively
stable society, but the power of the drug cartels is formidable. In
November in Mexico City, a suspicious crash of a Learjet, carrying
nine passengers, claimed the lives of the powerful interior minister,
Juan Camilo Mourino, No. 2 in the government, who spearheaded
President Felipe Calderon's military crackdown on the drug gangs, and
drug czar Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos who was behind Mexico's
highest-profile operations against the cartels. In April, a U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration briefing on Mexico drug trafficking
accused Mr. Vasconcelos of having taken bribes from the Beltran Levya
drug cartel.

Since 1994 with the enactment of the North American Free Trade
Agreement, Mexico has become one of our most important trading
partners. America is responsible for some 85 percent of Mexico's
legal exports -- well more than $200 billion -- and is after Canada
our largest market.

American companies furnish more than 60 percent of all foreign direct
investment. But the drug problem overshadows free trade. Ninety
percent of U.S. cocaine and large quantities of other illegal drugs
come from or through Mexico. And drugs are not the only form of
contraband to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The overwhelming number
of illegal guns seized from Mexican drug gangs have their origin in
the United States. And drug money laundered through the United States
lines the pockets of the Mexican drug lords to the annual tune of
billions of dollars.

In a recent address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York,
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano underscored the
importance of interdicting "the smuggling of narcotics, weapons, bulk
cash and people at the United States-Mexico border" to ensure "that
. the large cartels there are broken up."

Ms. Napolitano further stressed that Mexico must not be permitted to
become a transit point for terrorists seeking to launch an attack on
the American homeland. Accordingly, under the Merida Initiative,
Congress pledged $1.4 billion in security funding over three years to
buy weapons and training for the Mexican military and police. Some
experts have criticized the Merida Initiative as helpful but
inadequate aid for a next-door neighbor, particularly when compared
with the Plan Colombia package of $600 million yearly.

A major element of the security mix will be changes in U.S.
immigration policy. Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt
reminded the Daughters of the American Revolution to "Remember always
that all of us ... are descended from immigrants and revolutionists,"
it scarcely needs saying that our country was built on a cornerstone
of immigration. Mexico is the largest source of immigrants to the
United States.

As a result of economic pressures and soaring birthrates beginning in
the 1980s, some 11 million Mexicans have legally or illegally
immigrated to the United States seeking better jobs and higher wages.
In 2007, these workers sent home to their families roughly $24
billion in remittances.

Mexicans represent 30 percent of our foreign-born population. Many of
these are here illegally and have no plan to return. Comprehensive
immigration reform is obviously necessary to replace a system that
has become dysfunctional. A blue-ribbon task force of the Council on
Foreign Relations headed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former
Clinton White House Chief of Staff Mac McLarty just concluded,
"Mexico represents a special case for U.S. immigration policy.
Because of the size of the cross-border labor flows, its close
economic integration with the United States and the implications for
U.S. homeland security, the U.S.-Mexico relationship on migration
issues is particularly important for American foreign policy interests."

The jury is still out on how much U.S. aid can bolster democratic
institutions in a lawless Latin American society. In Colombia, where
serious crimes continue to be committed with impunity, massive U.S.
aid may have prevented the drug lords from toppling the country, but
a huge number of unpunished murders halt progress and stall a free
trade agreement with the United States.

Thus, Ms. O'Neil perceives Mexico's Achilles' heel to be its
corruption; Colombia's Achilles' heel to be its lack of civil
governance. The way forward, she says, is to strengthen democracy and
rule of law in both countries.

Mr. Taylor actually was in Mexico. He is said to have been confined
to his hotel room for the entirety of his stay with Montezuma's
revenge. Some say, however, that the song is really about doing drugs.