The press conference with the two leaders was broadcast live, but I managed only about 15 minutes before my attention wandered to The Predator (16th time I'd seen it, and as good as ever!). In that time, Obama had a good answer to a good question about measuring success and setting goals in the war on drugs.
Q (As translated.) Good afternoon, Presidents. You are going to share four years of an administration, and there can be an in-depth change in this fight against organized crime in these four years. As of today, how can we establish the concrete objectives that in 2012 will allow us to say, fine, a new era began between Mexico and the United States back then?
Particularly I'm addressing this to you, President Obama. In addition to the chance that you will invest your political capital in being able to stop the flow of these weapons to Mexico, what can we hope for, what can we expect to see in terms of arresting the drug lords, the kingpins, in the U.S.?
[Break]
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think that we can measure this in terms of the reduction in violence; in the interdiction of drugs; in the interdiction of weapons coming south; in the dismantling of the financial structures that facilitate these drug cartels; in the arrest of major drug kingpins.
So I think we know how to measure progress.[Break]PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: Thank you, President. I agree a great deal with you and I fully thank you for your support and understanding in this very difficult topic. I think the question is very relevant. I see a big opportunity for President Obama and myself, since we are going to be sharing the next four years as heads of our administrations, I see a big opportunity here.
[Break]
Now, in the midterm, we would like a renewal of our police forces in Mexico. At the end of my administration, I would like to be able to have a new federal police that will be worthy of the citizens' trust and that will be efficient. And here U.S. cooperation is also fundamental. Why? Well, because on our side we are cleaning our house, we are sweeping everything from top to bottom so that all the police forces, from the top officials at the Attorney General's office, the army, the navy, that all officials in Mexico, all police officials that we can truly trust in their honesty, and that at the same time, technologically, they will be top-notch, as the rest of the world, in investigation, in databases. We want a scientific police, one that is very well-trained in technology, and U.S. help will be very welcome and it will be essential.
We also have a judicial plan for oral trials. And I think that as we fulfill these objectives, many of them have already -- are part of our agreement on safety, security and protection. With a shared responsibility that we now have with President Obama and his team, we are certain that we will reach these objectives and that our strategy, which is the correct one, will have many more possibilities of achieving success, and that at the end of our administration we will have a Mexico, a United States, that are much safer and freer of violence -- violence free, rather.
Of course, drug trafficking cannot be ended by decree. As long as there is a supply of high -- or rather, is high demand, there will be a high supply. But what we can control is the effect of criminal activities in society, to stop the actions of organized crime, and we can also act preventively in order to bring down the consumption of drugs in the United States, and in Mexico, too, which also begins to be a problem of great concern to us.
They were both a bit vague, and I wish Calderón would have mentioned reducing government corruption, but I think they both have the right basic frame of mind about what constitutes success.
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