Mexico Under Siege

CALDERON SEEKS TO DISPEL TALK OF 'FAILING STATE'

Two Recent U.S. Reports Paint a Dire Picture of Mexico As Its Battle
Against Drug Crime Grows More Bloody, but Mexican Officials Say That
Though Some Cities Are in Trouble, the State Itself Is Strong.

Stark assessments of the threat that drug crime poses to Mexico's
stability have put the government of President Felipe Calderon on the
defensive as he tries to forge a relationship with a new U.S. president.

Rising violence, spurred in part by Calderon's 2-year-old offensive
against drug traffickers, has prompted some officials and analysts in
the United States to warn that Mexico faces a risk of collapse within
several years.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command recommended that Mexico be monitored
alongside Pakistan as a "weak and failing" state that could crumble
swiftly under relentless assault by violent drug cartels.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug
agency director, said in a separate analysis on Mexico that the
government "is not confronting dangerous criminality -- it is
fighting for its survival against narco-terrorism" and could lose
effective control of large swaths near the U.S. border. The outgoing
CIA director, Michael V. Hayden, listed Mexico with Iran as a
possible top challenge for President Obama. And former U.S. House
Speaker Newt Gingrich said this month that Mexico could turn into a
surprise crisis for the new president by year's end.

The assessments come as Calderon seeks to assert that gains have been
made in his government's fight against drug traffickers, a campaign
that has aggravated violent feuding among gangs vying to supply the
lucrative U.S. market for narcotics. More than 5,300 people died in
the violence last year.

Mexican officials and most analysts here scoff at depictions of
Mexico as a failed or failing state. They say it bears little
resemblance to basket cases such as Somalia, Haiti or Sudan, with
their weak central governments, sectarian blood-letting or fleeing populace.

"It's a very bad analysis," said Raul Benitez, an expert on security
and U.S.-Mexico relations at the National Autonomous University of
Mexico. "Mexico has some failed institutions inside the government,
but not the whole state."

Few deny that lawlessness prevails in cities such as Ciudad Juarez
and Tijuana, and that corruption has chewed deep into law enforcement
agencies and the courts. Still, many analysts say, the government's
basic authority remains intact in most of the country, and the daily
violence is nothing like that of a civil war.

"You have places where things are not going well, but that hardly
makes a failed state," said one U.S. official. "And there's an
incredible resolve by the Calderon government to address those challenges."

But the darker assessments have put the Calderon administration in
the awkward position of making a strong enough case for increased
U.S. help while trying to stave off the kind of talk that could scare
off tourists and foreign investors.

"These analyses are a big strike against Calderon," Benitez said. "He
wants the attention, but not the attention for the bad things."

Mexican officials dismiss the idea that their nation's problems
represent a threat to the United States. But they have emphasized
that the United States must do more to curb drug use and to help stem
the flow of guns across the border. Calderon reiterated that drug
violence is a shared problem during a visit with Obama on Jan. 12, a
week before the inauguration.

Calderon has deployed 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal police officers
around the country as part of the anti-drug offensive. His
administration has said the violence among the cartels is a sign that
the campaign is putting pressure on traffickers' ability to smuggle
drugs into the U.S.

"It seems unacceptable to me that Mexico would be deemed a security
risk," the interior minister, Fernando Gomez Mont, told reporters
this month. "There are problems in Mexico that we are dealing with,
that we can continue to deal with."

Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa also plays down the possible
threat to the central government, saying killings have been
concentrated mainly in four drug-trafficking hubs: Ciudad Juarez,
Culiacan, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

Denials by Mexican officials, however vehement, probably won't be
enough to stanch the grave assessments as long as the nation shakes
with violence.

"They're pushing back, but I think the evidence is on the other
side," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico scholar who teaches at the
College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. "You've got more
cartels, in more diverse activities. They're in more states. They're
killing more people. They're kidnapping more people and getting more
attention for the savagery of their acts."

Few here expect Mexico to rise to the top of Obama's long list of
urgent foreign-policy worries, which include the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and questions over how
to handle Pakistan.

An Obama-Calderon relationship is yet to be forged. Calderon's visit
with Obama in Washington produced general vows of close cooperation,
but no immediate indication of big shifts on the most ticklish
bilateral issues, including migration.

Calderon enjoyed the firm support of former President Bush, a fellow
conservative, and the two governments usually sang from the same page
when it came to Mexico's military-led strategy against drug traffickers.

The Bush administration consistently praised Calderon's efforts to
fight crime and corruption, despite setbacks. The U.S. ambassador
here was a onetime Bush aide, Tony Garza. He stepped down Tuesday and
his replacement has not yet been named.

Calderon probably can count on continued U.S. backing, primarily
through the $1.4-billion security-aid package known as the Merida
initiative. The first $400 million was approved by Congress last
year, and has begun flowing after some delay.

The aid will provide the Mexican military with six helicopter troop
carriers and a surveillance airplane, truck scanners, police
equipment and law-enforcement training and technical help.

Obama has pledged continued support, including trying to curtail
gun-running from the United States. But the administration has not
shown signs of the alarm sounded by McCaffrey, who said a failure by
Mexico to curb violence "could result in a surge of millions of
refugees" across the U.S. border.