Narcoterror

El Universal sees the recent wave of violence in Sinaloa --which has included car bombs and seemingly unprovoked attacks on innocents-- and revelations about connections between cartels and Middle Eastern groups as a sign that Mexico is heading toward an era of narcoterrorism. I'm not so convinced. Car bombs are not entirely new in Mexico -- there's a good anecdote about a failed car bomb plot from the 1990s in The Cartel, by Jesús Blancornelas. I also think that it's premature to read too much into the training of Mexican hitmen in Iran (unless El Universal knows more than it is reporting).

There are also important differences between Colombia in the 1990s and Mexico today. First, the Colombian jungle is much further removed from any remnant of government control than any comparable area of Mexico. Second, Mexican drug networks are much looser and more independent than the hierarchical Medellín Cartel that Pablo Escobar operated. If the government were at the point of taking down El Chapo Guzmán, he wouldn't be able to turn each one of the cells associated with his network against it the way Escobar could. Instead, many of them would just look for a better deal under the umbrella of other cartels (hence the constantly shifting loyalties among different groups in Mexico). 

In any event, I agree with this point about the response from the government: 

We don't want them to tell us anymore that the situation is like this because the government is winning the war against drug trafficking, nor that it is a reaction to the blows that organized crime has undoubtedly received. 

Even if there's a kernel of truth to that optimistic explanation, there's no way to prove it in the near term, and it just sounds tone deaf.