The increasing strife in Mexico is chaotic even by Latin American standards—Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s massive deployment of troops to Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, was a visible reminder of the dangers inherent in combating a crime that has infiltrated the very organizations designed against it. These troops were sent to take the place of a crumbling police force, but themselves were hampered by misguided Mexican-American politics.

The American government’s widening war against Mexican drug cartels has resulted in thousands of deaths in Mexico proper, numerous kidnappings and violent altercations across the border, especially in Arizona. Governor Rick Perry of Texas has called for the use of American troops at the border, and while President Obama has not entirely ruled out the option, he has remained noncommittal. Since there are enormous fortunes to be made off American drug users, the cartels often maintain their own enclaves in the southwestern United States, which in some cases results in bloody house raids of the dealers. Back in Mexico, if the gangs do not commit their murders with .50 caliber machine guns, they usually resort to beheadings. And so, in some spots, corpses literally litter the sand.  

The simultaneous presence of swine flu in Latin America has only deepened Americans’ preconception of a filthy Mexico. To many Americans it seems all too clear that their old vacation spots in Cancun or Tulum were only veneers covering up rotting hellholes, places ruled not by law and order but by the Mexican protégés of Pablo Escobar.

But it is dangerous, even counterproductive, for Americans to view Mexico’s problems solely as a reflection on Mexico itself. The difficulties in Mexico are indicative of the sorry state of Mexico-U.S. relations and point to dual culpability of both countries in failing to predict the scope of events. The laxity on the American side is particularly egregious, as American weapons are flowing into the cartels’ hands: U.S. federal agents estimate that about 90 percent of the pistols and rifles recovered by Mexican authorities from drug dealers in 2008 came from American sellers, most of these sellers operating in Texas and Arizona. As a result, Mexico’s drug cartels are able to get a steady source of firepower for their illegal activities. And this is not to mention that the Mexican drug trade itself is fueled by America’s ample demand for marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.  

While President Obama recognized these trends in a recent speech he gave in Mexico City, his administration has been unwilling to do anything other than cheer the Mexican government from the sidelines. At the local level, even if gun store owners recognize a shady sale, the authorities have often missed a chance to nab the guns before they cross the border.  Due to American law enforcement’s previous successes in cutting off routes that Colombian drug cartels used to ship cocaine to the U.S., the Mexican cartels have been more than willing to take up the mantle and receive support from the Colombians. Indeed, the recent conflict can be seen as a reflection on the drug trade itself—a hydra of immense proportions facing the United States, upon which Mexico is the latest, and perhaps most dangerous, man-heating head.

The Mexican government, meanwhile, has used the United States’ role in the crisis as a convenient way to cover up its own shortcomings. The result has been an oversimplification of what is a quite complex problem. The upsurge in violence that came with Calderon’s decision to engage in all-out war against the cartels led U.S. analysts to apply the epithet “failed state” to Mexico in a 2008 Pentagon report discussing the country’s possible future. In an interview in April, Calderon dodged this implication by pointing to Americans’ readiness to sell guns and buy illegal drugs as root causes of the conflict, rejecting the U.S. government’s assessments of his country. Calderon called “absurd” the assertion by Dennis Blair, U.S. Director of National Intelligence, that Mexico had lost control of parts of its country. Since then, Calderon has demanded that the United States recognize its culpability in allowing Mexican drug cartels to operate a flourishing industry within its own borders, especially when the cartels deliver $13.8 billion worth of narcotics to American drug users each year. To Calderon, further evidence of the American media's interest in "exalting criminals" is Forbes' recent ranking of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman as the 701st wealthiest person in the world.

Calderon is right that Mexico is not a failed state: Drug-related killings have been so frequent probably because the cartels realize the game may soon be up for them. But he is wrong to shift blame to the United States for its supposed combativeness against Mexico. Even though White House spokesman Robert Gibbs emphasized that violence in Mexico is “not going to be solved in the long term through the militarization of the border,” Calderon has nonetheless spoken of a “campaign” that the U.S. is waging against Mexico. Busily pointing fingers, Calderon fails to account for the extensive corruption in Mexican law enforcement that hampers the central government’s directives. Mexico may complain about the ease with which the cartels can get American rifles and pistols, but if these drug lords know anything about guns, they probably prefer the Mexican arms market anyway, from which they can purchase real AK-47s instead of the civilian versions sold across the Rio Grande. All the while, U.S. authorities are prevented from doing more to help the situation precisely because the cartels have kept most of the violence within Mexico for fear that running rampant north of the border would disrupt operations further.

At issue here is the central problem of the United States and Mexico’s geographic proximity to one another: While on the one hand this proximity dictates sociopolitical interconnectedness, it simultaneously provides ample room for blame-shifting that often conflates endemic Mexican problems with American problems, and vice versa. Calderon’s sharp comments about American culpability were probably sparked by the downturn in Mexico’s economy, which itself is due to Mexico’s reliance upon the United States as a major trading partner and on the sorry economic conditions that cause the Mexican poor to flee to the U.S. year after year. After Calderon’s blame switch, Congress appeared to tear up NAFTA by closing the border to Mexican trucks. To this Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 89 American products, strategically targeting items linked to the districts of influential Congressmen. In this light, Calderon’s claims that the U.S. is campaigning against Mexico don’t seem too far-fetched; in fact, he gives them further credence when he points out that the cartels would never even survive without their loyal customers north of the border.  

Whatever the validity of Calderon’s claims, they show that President Obama is receiving the first real test of his broad, consensus-based approach to foreign policy in Mexico. His method of handling Latin American problems needs a partial overhaul. He may think that making overtures to Cuba, for instance, works on some level in that it breaks with past dogma. But this stance risks imposing a false moral equivalency on Mexico, Cuba, and other Latin American countries in terms of their systems of government and their relationships with the United States. The reality is that such an equivalent state of affairs does not exist. Instead, Mexico ought to be treated as a reliable ally and with the gravity its situation merits. Whatever Americans feel about Mexico’s apparent lawlessness, the country is a strategic partner that must be kept away from the bombastic and populist socialism that has sprung up in Venezuela and Bolivia and kept Cuba under the iron fist of the Castro brothers for 50 years. While the new tide of anti-Americanism in Latin America is certainly not receding, Calderon still needs to accept the vigorous support of the United States in terms of involving law enforcement and even the military if necessary. The alternative is far worse: an anti-American socialist in the mold of a Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales taking power in Mexico and blaming the country’s problems on American imperialism. Such a regime would involve a far nastier populism than the recent NAFTA row. Washington needs to realize that the current crisis provides an opportunity to cement ties with an important ally and not retrench with a border mentality. Calderon’s own administration must show definitively that their leader’s rhetoric is harmful to bilateral cooperation and helpful to Latin American dictators.  

For its part, Washington must formulate a multi-layered approach that would involve actual cooperation between American and Mexican law enforcement. Washington should state clearly that it does not intend to undermine Mexican sovereignty in the process. Calderon himself ought to stop making spurious criticisms of the U.S., lest he risk providing the illusion to Latin American demagogues that anti-Americanism is a widely applicable approach to relations with the United States. The readiness with which some have classified Mexico as a failed state is due to the limbo in which the drug war now exists, not because of the failings of Mexican institutions. Nor should anyone expect Calderon to capitulate to the drug cartels; but this conflict is about more than just drugs. If the Obama team cannot prevent Mexico from descending into total disarray, then it will be hard-pressed to find its other Latin American concerns—Cuba, Venezuela, and the like—willing to take it seriously.