In an op-ed in the Washington Post Mexican journalist León Krauze exhorts Mexico’s president to continue the fight in which she has engaged against criminal cartels in Mexico:
On Sunday, Claudia Sheinbaum’s government recorded a significant success in its fight against organized crime. In an operation led by its armed forces, Mexican authorities killed Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes — “El Mencho” — the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the most powerful criminal organization to emerge in Mexico in decades.
and
Oseguera’s death also marks a definitive break with years of permissiveness under the previous administration led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador’s “hugs, not bullets” strategy allowed criminal organizations such as the CJNG to expand their dominance. Oseguera’s killing suggests that the constant pressure exerted by the Trump administration has pushed the Mexican government to change course. Indeed, early reporting suggests U.S. intelligence helped make the operation a success.
warning that what she has already accomplished is just the first step in what is likely to be a long and bloody campaign:
Sheinbaum may have embarked on this more aggressive path only reluctantly, but she must now stay the course. It will probably be a complicated and bloody ride.
Although the U. S.’s provision of intelligence was prudent and the U. S. will benefit materially from a reduction in cartel activity in Mexico (and the U. S.!), we should take care to maintain a low profile in this “ride”. Not everything is about us and making it about us runs the risk of adding political risk to the material risks already involved, potentially derailing the campaign. Mexicans have a historically well-founded wariness of U. S. intervention in Mexican affairs.
Potentially, participation can have various escalating levels: quiet intelligence aid, taking credit, and actual operational participation. We should limit kinetic participation to activities on our side of the border. Doing otherwise invites nationalist backlash.
Mexico is a large, proud country, prosperous by world standards despite having many poor people in it. They don’t need us to fight their wars for them or want us to take credit for doing it. Take the win graciously.
