CALDERON'S DEAD-END WAR

His Militarized, Politicized Fight Against Mexico's Drug Cartels Has
Been Ineffective

In Ciudad Juarez this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon
insisted that appearances notwithstanding, drug violence had begun to
recede thanks to the yearlong presence of 10,000 Mexican troops in
the border city.

Yet according to his own government's figures, there have been 536
executions in Juarez since Jan. 1, which is 100 more than during the
same period last year.

And the violence is not localized to a few border towns like Juarez.
Over a holiday weekend in Acapulco this month, 34 people were
assassinated in drug-related incidents; nearly 20 suffered the same
fate in the drug-producing state of Sinaloa; and perhaps most
poignant, two graduate students from Mexico's premier private
university, Monterrey Tech, lost their lives March 19, victims of
crossfire as the Mexican military pursued drug cartel members at the
entrance to the campus.

All in all, Calderon's war on drugs -- unleashed in December 2006,
barely 10 days after he took office -- has been not only ineffective
but damaging to Mexico.

Since Calderon took office, overall levels of violence have
increased, and the state's territorial control is, at best, about
what it was in 2006.

No area of the country has been truly recovered by the state, and
those few examples of partial success (Tijuana is perhaps the most
notable one) last only as long as federal troops remain.

But the Mexican army is clearly overextended: Of its 100,000 combat
and patrol troops, 96,000 are on constant duty, and desertions are increasing.

So what else can Mexico do? And, because this is increasingly as much
President Obama's war as Calderon's, what can Washington do?

There are at least three options, none of which is perfect but all of
which are certainly preferable to a deplorable and unsustainable status quo.

The first, and most minimalist, would be to continue employing the
same strategy and policy, but more quietly.

Calderon on occasion gives the impression that he is as interested in
trumpeting the war as in waging or winning it (remember President
George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished"?). Simply by toning down the
rhetoric, lowering the priority assigned to the war and emphasizing
other pressing issues such as economic growth, political reform and
social policy, he might reassure the country and lessen the
politicization of his confrontation with the cartels.

A second option would be to reset the entire affair and start over.

This would require creating a single national police force, a
longtime goal on which scant progress has been made during this
administration or the two previous ones. Creating such a force would
allow the military to be brought back to the barracks where it belongs.

Such an overhaul also would facilitate a greater emphasis on
intelligence and a greater focus on individual communities, along
with a shift away from focusing primarily on the most high-profile
targets. All of this might not make that much of a difference, but it
would be a start.

A third, much more ambitious alternative would involve Mexico
lobbying for decriminalization of at least marijuana in the United States.

There is a certain urgency to this. If, come November, California
were to vote on -- and pass -- a popular initiative on cannabis
legalization (and polls show this is possible), this could leave
Mexico in an untenable and absurd situation in which troops and
civilians were dying in Tijuana to stop Mexican marijuana from
entering the U.S. -- where, once it entered, it could be consumed,
transported and sold legally.

On Mexico's part, this would imply an about-face -- pulling the army
out of the towns and off the highways and, up to a point, letting the
cartels bleed themselves to death, while over a couple of years the
above-mentioned national police force would be created and deployed.

It would, most controversially, require some sort of a tacit deal
with some cartels, and "the full force of the law" against others.
This is less scandalous than it may appear. It would be similar to
the approach the Obama administration is taking with poppy growers
and heroin producers in Afghanistan.

Most important, though, it would demand a totally different,
"de-narcotized" U.S.-Mexican agenda. This would mean placing Mexican
development at the top of the agenda, along with immigration, energy
and infrastructure and social cohesion funds.

This last approach would make drug policy for both nations once again
a law enforcement issue rather than one of national security.