Calderon and Obama: A Miracle?

Obama gives the same priority to Mexico as he does to organized crime.

An old adage says that the U.S. government has no friends but interests.

And the issue comes to be, referring to the Mexican government’s diplomatic lobbying, especially by Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan, who made the first meeting between President Felipe Calderón and his elected northern neighbor Barack Obama happen. How should we understand that the Mexican president is the first-and-only president who will meet with Obama before January 20th?

The reasons may be many, from a miracle, a chance, a gesture of good neighborlyness, and in the most extreme, a true national security interest to Americans and a threat of major crisis for Obama’s new government. This is why we must insist that governments across the northern border are only interests. And what is the interest in this case? That is the question.

Contrary to what many assume-and it was just a few days ago that a possible meeting was spoken of with sarcasm–the President-elect’s strategists made a point of reading the reports sent to Washington, from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, on the war on organized crime and drug trafficking led by Felipe Calderón’s government and the danger that the war could move into U.S. territory, consistent with its national security crisis.

But that’s not all. Specialists in the “reading of time,”–Mexico’s relationship with the United States–have identified another risk. This is the pressure faced by the northern border by way of the global crisis, because this crisis will shed thousands of workers already living in the United States to the streets, while unemployment will accelerate the flow from Mexico.

What work will undocumented Mexicans already living in the United States obtain once they are dismissed? Is the assessment that they will return to Mexico? Or is it the ability to stop the flow of Mexicans to the United States the global crisis that germinates with our neighbor to the North?

If the Mexicans who crossed the border illegally from the north risked life to achieve the “American Dream,” it will be difficult for them to return.

Moreover, the risk of becoming unemployed in that country will make more than a few willing to accept any job, as will the newcomers. And that is the ideal condition to flourish beyond the borders criminal gangs. Already there is talk of the Mexican mafia to the North and South of the border.

And nobody knows that the war being waged by the Mexican government against the drug barons has moved to these criminal gangs across borders, with its tail of violence and corruption. So the governments of Guatemala and the United States military decided to shield their respective borders. That dry militarization, lacking a political, diplomatic, and economic, trade and immigration, it’s just a time bomb waiting to explode which will cause serious damage to all.

The truth is that completion of the election campaigns bring focus once against to the “real Mexico” for the nascent government of Barack Obama see the relationship with Mexico as a priority, not a gesture of good neighborliness, not by a miracle, and less by a astral prediction. Mexico is a priority for the neighbor to the north and the government of Obama, both in its war against organized crime and as a risk to the national security of that country.

At the start of Ernesto Zedillo’s government, President Clinton rescued Mexico from the “December error” with millions in credit. And he did not do this through good will, but to shield the U.S. economy. Today the voices across the border – Obama’s men- suppose that Calderon’s war on organized crime threatens the Mexican state and its democracy. But the reality is also a time bomb for the Obama administration.

It is not debatable whether it is a good or bad sign that Obama’s government gives priority treatment a Mexico and its government. In any case, it would be interesting to understand that the apparent priority given Obama its relationship with Mexico, shows the size and the risk of the opponent he faces Calderon’s government in its fight against organized crime. The interesting thing is whether Obama and Calderon have talent and a willingness to go beyond just individual interest, or if they can build a relationship based on shared interests of members, neighbors and Democrats. But today, few believe in miracles.