What If Mexico Loses Its Drug War?

Security: A new Pentagon forecast warns that Mexico is so embattled by drug lords it could rapidly collapse. The study says the only other state so threatened is Pakistan. This ought to be a wake-up call about U.S. priorities.

In its assessment of worldwide security threats, known as the "Joint Operating Environment," or JOE 2008 report, the United States Joint Forces Command warns that Mexico and Pakistan face the possibility of a "rapid and sudden" collapse.

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely [than Pakistan - some standard], but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that international conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone,"

That means a military surge — not to defend faraway Iraq, but defending our own homeland. A collapsed state will bring millions of Mexicans spilling over our border, not as illegal immigrants, but war refugees, fleeing for their lives from violence.

The U.S. will have no choice but to accept such refugees on humanitarian grounds, just as Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela have had to do from over their own borders in the past. Criminals often embed themselves among them, to prey on the helpless and to expand their operations, creating a new internal threat to the US.

It's time to pay attention now...

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