CAN CALDERON WIN MEXICO'S DRUG WAR?

Felipe Calderon is on a roll these days. Mexico's young president has
an approval rating of between 57 percent and 68 percent, according to
various polls: twice his score in last year's election. The reason is
his war on drugs, which has convinced most of his countrymen and the
"commentocracy" that he means business. It's a fight that, according
to the media, "had to be waged" and was "too long postponed" against
a drug trade that almost "tore the country apart."

So why are so many doubts being voiced in private? Current and former
government officials, experts and pundits are quietly questioning the
campaign: its name (why call it a "war"?), the wisdom of using the
military, the absence of an exit strategy, the budgetary implications
and the threat to human rights. Many wonder whether Calderon's new
team has really thought the project through and if the entire "war"
is more media ploy than strategy.

There's no question Mexico's drug problem is bad and getting worse.
Last year about 2,000 drug-related murders took place, and there have
already been over 1,000 so far this year. But Ricardo Clemente Vega,
the Defense secretary of Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, refused
to throw his troops into the fray. Though his military did an
outstanding job at intelligence gathering, interdiction and crop
eradication, the secretary rejected Fox's entreaties to engage the
Army in police-work like interrogations, manning checkpoints,
conducting searches and disarmament.

The reasons for refusing were basic: the Mexican military is not
trained, equipped or enthusiastic about such chores. And it is much
easier to bring the Army out of its barracks than it is to send it
back in. Third, Mexicans refused to let the Army become an excuse for
postponing a more lasting solution, namely, the creation of an
effective, well-trained, well-equipped and well-paid national
civilian police force. Critics also recognized that drug work would
inevitably discredit the armed forces, as soldiers became abusive
after months of being stationed in impoverished areas under high
degrees of stress and boredom.

These fears are now being proved right. The controversial president
of Mexico's National Human Rights Commission issued a frightening
report this week on human-rights violations in the state of
Michoacan, where Calderon sent in troops last December. More than 50
serious complaints of abuse by the military were lodged last month,
including rapes, beatings and thefts. Calderon has said he will
investigate and punish whoever is responsible, but the problem will
likely get worse before it gets better.

Does this mean he should have refrained from waging this expensive,
dangerous and open-ended war? No. But many critics, including this
one, believe that several questions have not been adequately
addressed. Mexicans have never been told what we're fighting for. Do
we want to defeat and banish the cartels, or just force them back
into their lairs? Do we want to spare Mexico (but not the United
States) by sealing off Mexico's southern border, thereby rerouting
drug shipments from South America to the United States via detours in
the Caribbean and the gulf?

Our strategy needs to keep up with the changing nature of the drug
problem. In past years the country was only a production and
transshipment base; today it has become a drug-consuming society, and
most of the violence is now due to gangsters' duking it out over the
Mexican (as opposed to U.S.) market. Calderon hasn't publicly
addressed any of these issues, so the country can't know if he has
resolved them for himself.

The president deserves the benefit of the doubt--but not forever. In
the early '70s, President Luis Echeverria unleashed his own drug war
in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. It lasted a couple of years,
was brutal and costly, destroyed entire towns, involved egregious
human-rights violations and was extremely effective ... in driving
the drug lords south to the state of Jalisco. Mexicans will not stand
for another pyrrhic victory like that one, opinion polls
notwithstanding. Fox governed with his eyes on the polls, for which
he has been roundly and justifiably criticized. Calderon is beginning
to do the same thing: his war on drugs is popular, but that is not
the best way to gauge its wisdom or effectiveness.

Castaneda is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin
American Studies at New York University and a former foreign minister of Mexico.