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 Editorials | February 2006 
Get Off the Grandstand
 Guillermo I. Martínez - Sun-Sentinel
A nation's foreign policy should be based on solid principles that do not ignore geopolitical reality and do not forget domestic politics. This is at the heart of the problems the United States now has in its relationship with Mexico.
International geopolitical realities mandate that we improve relations with Mexico, and particularly with the government of President Vicente Fox. The United States does not need another of the top five nations providing oil to this country on its list of unfriendly governments. U.S. officials should be careful they do not push Mexico too far in this election year, or Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the populist former mayor of Mexico City who has never visited the United States, might just become our southern neighbor's next president.
That would make our current immigration, drug and border problems with Mexico appear insignificant. We complain now that Fox does not do enough to control those who cross the border daily into the United States, that top echelons of Mexico's armed forces have close ties with the drug cartels and that violence in the border grows exponentially - all true.
But having a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez controlling Mexico would be worse. That is why the news from Mexico lately has been so disheartening.
First, we have what Mexicans call "the Sheraton incident." In it the Bush administration reminded executives of Sheraton's parent company that the Helms-Burton law prohibited American businessmen from hosting a meeting with Cuban officials in its hotels.
The Bush administration invoked Helms-Burton to quell the unrest of South Florida Cuban-Americans unhappy with other recent decisions.
Yet it is not in this country's best geopolitical interest to do so. By injecting American political interests and American law into an event taking place in Mexico, in a hotel governed by the laws of the country where it stands, we are stupidly, stubbornly inserting our politics into Mexico's presidential elections. By pleasing South Florida's Cuban-American community, we fanned the flames of Mexico's nationalistic fervor. This hurts Fox and damages the candidacy of Felipe Calderón, who belongs to Fox's party. It allows Cuba to interject itself, once again, in Mexican politics, and help the López Obrador candidacy.
That certainly is not what the United States seeks. Yet the decision to invoke Helms-Burton and force the Sheraton to oust Cuban officials, who were to meet in its conference rooms with American petroleum industry executives, is not the only recent asinine mistake by this administration with regard to Mexico.
Raymundo Riva Palacio, one of Mexico's leading columnists, details the unannounced and unwelcome visit by Central Intelligence Agency Director Peter Goss to Mexico early this month. Not even U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza knew he was coming.
Goss, according to Riva Palacio, met with top Mexican intelligence, foreign relations and defense officials. His visit further damaged the already frayed relations between the two countries.
Not that many of the points Goss had to make were not valid: quite the opposite. Goss was correct in protesting incidents in which men dressed in Mexican military uniforms crossed the border to provide assistance to drug smugglers. According to those present at the meeting, this has happened 240 times in the last five years. He complained to Defense Minister General Clemente Vega García that the United States was not pleased that Vega García has not arrested any high-ranking military officers suspected of working for Mexican drug cartels, as his predecessor had done.
All of the CIA director's points are valid. If true, Mexico should provide explanations for the border violence, for the influence of the drug cartel in its armed forces, and for the undeterred immigration. But these are issues that Presidents Bush and Fox should take up, in the spirit in which the two met shortly after Bush came into office in 2001. U.S.-Mexico relations should be at that level. They should not be left to lesser officials - even at the CIA director's level - to address. Mexico is too important to U.S. geopolitical interests.
Let us not forget that the current sparring began when the U.S. administration decided to invoke Helms-Burton to please its South Florida constituents. Some top adviser should have said this was neither the time nor the place to make a political grandstand play when U.S. national interests are in play.
Guillermo I. Martínez resides in South Florida. His e-mail address is Guimar123@gmail.com. |
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