With Calderón's single 6-year term coming to a close, the success or failure of his U.S.-aligned policy toward the cartels will likely hinge on the willingness of his successor to embrace and continue it.
According to Brands, who spoke with Trend Lines on Monday, the chances are good that Calderón's National Action Party will be succeeded by the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which "has a long history of minimizing violence and disputes with the cartels by allowing them a considerable degree of autonomy in parts of the country."
While it remains to be seen whether the PRI will pursue such a policy if it wins the presidency, the party is most likely to draw the support of frustrated Mexican voters -- such as the estimated 150,000 who took to the streets of Mexico City on May 8.
"To the extent that there is more and more dissatisfaction with Calderón's policies and with the drug war in general, the PRI is the most obvious candidate to benefit," said Brands.
"There have been some hints from people within the PRI that there needs to be a truce with the drug cartels," he added. "If that course were followed either openly or tacitly, I think the U.S. would find it much more difficult to work with Mexico toward countering the drug trade."
The U.S. ramped up its support for Mexico's drug war in 2006 with the passage of the first Merida Initiative. The program called for delivery of $1.5 billion through 2011 to fight drug crime in Mexico and Central America, although the primary focus involved buying U.S.-made helicopters for Mexico, and beefing up search technology along the country's borders. Merida II has since been adopted, with a focus less on military hardware and more on helping Mexico build non-corrupt institutions.
Brands, however, contends that the Merida Initiative has largely failed to live up to expectations because of "bureaucratic bottlenecking."
"It has been an absolute nightmare actually getting the money obligated and then getting it dispersed," he said, adding that actual funding has fallen well short of what was called for in the legislation.
Such realities may only add salt to the wound for Mexicans critical of the war being waged on their soil over drugs whose primary market is the United States. "There is a growing sense of frustration among Mexicans," said Brands. "The perception is essentially that Mexicans are getting murdered because Americans like cocaine and marijuana."
"The criticism," he added, "is that the Mexican government is fighting a drug war on behalf of the United States, and it's Mexicans that are doing the vast majority of the dying."
