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Is Mexico ripe for U.S Intervention?
By Michael Werbowski In mid 19th century the so called “Maximilian Affair” led to the Franco-Mexican war and an invasion of the country by French imperial troops which were supported by the British and the Spaniards at the time. Mexico’s major European creditors were angered that the country was not paying its dues from foreign debts incurred by its government. This triggered the armed attack on Mexico back in 1861. Since then Mexico fell prey on a number of occasions, to military campaigns on its soil originating from hostile forces much closer to home, which is just across the U.S border. In 1842, U.S naval forces temporarily seized cities in Monterey and San Diego (which had not yet been annexed to the American government at the time). Later on, from 1846 till 1848 (the year of popular and violent uprisings against the autocratic regimes in Europe), a “state of war” existed between the two countries. In the end, Mexico was forced to renounce control over half of its territory to the U.S. by means of the “Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo”. Henceforth during the 20th century, in 1914, U.S marines took control and then occupied the Mexican port of Veracruz from April until November of that year. The following year in 1915, an expeditionary force of the US Army under Gen. John J. Pershing crossed the Texas border and penetrated several hundred miles into Mexican territory. Eventually it was reinforced to over 11,000 officers and men. In the early 21st century, the chances of another such similar armed U.S military cross border incursion or outright invasion- occupation cannot be overlooked nor easily dismissed. In fact in view of the current heightened security risks due to the ever intensifying and widening drug war such a probability is evermore likely with time.
Internally, there is tremendous upheaval in the country which resembles that which existed during the 1910 Mexican revolution. Or more recently during the Cristero Uprising or war The Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929. This saw a mass revolt against the central government at the time. A popular rebellion was sparked by draconian anti clerical laws which were promulgated and incorporated within the 1917 Mexican constitution. The religious rebels were not fighting for control of the lucrative drug trade back then, but for something much nobler of value or what they believed was the glory of Christ, under attack from a punitive secularist state. Mexican federal troops were sent in to quell the religiously inspired revolts. The ensuing tumult was abated this time by means of diplomacy instead of the “gringo” troops thanks to the adept American ambassador’s mediation at the time, Dwight Whitney Morrow.
Let’s fast forward to today, when once again Washington may be forced to resort, not to diplomatic means but armed force to stabilize its deeply troubled neighbor, submerged by a vortex of violence , while its citizenry is victimized by the drug gangs’ reign of terror. Is Mexico about to implode? David Rieff writes in an insightful piece entitled “Is Mexico disintegrating?” (www.projectsyndiate.com): “That crisis is located in Mexico, which is in freefall, its state institutions under threat as they have not been since at least the Cristero Uprising of the late 1920’s and possibly since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. While the Obama administration is obviously aware of what is happening south of the Rio Grande, the threat simply does not command the attention that its gravity requires. He goes on add this ominous warning: The crisis consists in nothing less than an effort by the major drug cartels to tame and suborn the Mexican state, and not just in the strip along the United States border, though the epicenter of the crisis is there. Obviously, the cartels’ leaders do not have designs on Mexico’s presidential palace. But, through a policy of terror extending from Oaxaca in the south, through Acapulco on the Pacific coast, and up to the great border cities of Tijuana and Juarez (Mexico’s sixth and seventh most populous cities, respectively), they have made it abundantly clear that they are trying to achieve impunity.’
Narco land and U.S neighbor. Recently Top U.S army commander have compared the Mexican drug war mess to the plight of Pakistan or Somalia, implying to the dismay (and perhaps deep disgust as well) of Mexican authorities that their country is practically a failed “narco state” on the verge of civil war. The discomfiting notion, that a NAFTA trade partner bordering the U.S, could turn into another Colombia or worse Afghanistan , run by heavily armed drug kingpins and war lords has apparently raised more than a few eyebrows in Washington. Silent alarms have been sounded in the corridors of the Pentagon. Last November a report issues by The United States Joint Forces Command (USJFC), warned about the prospect of Mexico facing “rapid collapse’. It said that in Mexico “….the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.” The report concludes with the following somewhat transparent threat: “Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
Felipe Calderon’s war is could soon become Obama’s as well. For now Washington seems to be sitting tight and watching the Mexican internal security meltdown on the sidelines. There are of course contingency being envisioned if things go further awry. The U.S department of defence is apparently coordinating inevitable operational options with “Homeland Security” which may involve the various forces from both departments which are currently jointly patrolling and policing, the already highly militarized Mexican U.S border zone; a lawless territory plagued by drug cartel warfare which is spilling over to the U.S side.
Mexican president Felipe Calderon has mobilized around 50,000 federal troops and police units, to fight on the domestic front lines of his war on drugs. In 2008, alone 5,700 deaths were linked to this civil conflict. Last January newly elected president Obama met with his Mexican counterpart in Washington. Little, however, of what transpired during their discussions was later revealed to the media.
The ghost of General Pershing shadows the U.S Mexican border Yet more recently the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen was in Mexico City this month to consult with his Mexican colleagues about possible joint actions to try to stop the drug war. The general drew disturbing comparisons of the Mexican situation with the U.S involvements in overseas military operations, such as in Afghanistan, supposedly also designed to halt the drug trade. Admiral Mullen apparently went to Mexico, to exchange ideas with his Mexican military colleagues, on how to deal with the drug war.
The visit seemed was about “sharing a lot of lessons we have learned, how we've developed similar capabilities over the last three or four years in our counterinsurgency efforts as we have fought terrorist networks." he said. Alluding perhaps to the ongoing American intervention in Afghanistan he added: "There are an awful lot of similarities." The U.S top general , later elaborated in a phone interview with the media after his visit, about plans for the Pentagon to assist the Mexican armed forces in dealing in the terrorist like “counter insurgency” now underway in the country by using tactics the U.S forces employed in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Mexico is being likened already to the land of the Taliban and terrorists by members of the U.S’s top military brass such as General Mullen, then this does not bode well for the future of the historically flimsy sovereignty and stability of the Mexican state. Michael Werbowski is a freelance reporter who specializes in environmental issues. He graduated from the University of Leeds, UK and wrote his MA dissertation in post-communist studies on the topic of EU enlargement to the nations of "new" central Europe. He did his BA studies at the faculty of Political Science and Law (University of Nantes, France) and later spent a year as an "etudiant libre" attending classes at the Institut d' Etudes Politiques de Paris. In 1992, he took summer courses in "American foreign policy" and "advanced journalism" at Harvard University. In 1993, he ran for parliament in the Canadian federal elections. He is a "Salzburg seminar" fellow from 1996 and was awarded a Wolfson college Cambridge media fellowship in 2004. From 1987 to 1993 he was correspondent in Paris of the "Canadian Outlook" magazine. From 1994 until 2000 he resided in Prague as a reporter for the local press. From 2000 until 2003 he worked in Mexico City as a correspondent for the Czech daily "Lidove Noviny" while collaborating with the Mexican media.
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