Reuters News Service in a February 24 dispatch headlines, ''U.S. Love Affair With Fox on Rocks Over Iraq.'' So which is the spurned ''lover,'' President George W. Bush and the United States or Mexico and its first non-PRI leader, Vicente Fox? Let's face it folks; Mexico has ''dumped'' the U.S.

The unceremonious and probably unwise rejection by Mexico of the American position on Iraq was communicated to media this weekend by Santiago Creel Miranda, the Interior Minister. Less than 48 hours before, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, in a public address, had asked for Mexico to support the U.S. on voting for a second U.N. Security Council resolution, giving Iraq a deadline to disarm, or else.

Why Secretary Creel, rather than new Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, was the bearer of the ''returned friendship ring'' is in itself a bit strange. Perhaps it was a further signal that Mexico is in a surly mood, feeling that its desire to see significant progress on the U.S./Mexico immigration question has been unjustly set aside by us since 9/11. The Interior Minister in the Mexican Government has traditionally been the ''muscle,'' the enforcer, behind Mexican presidents. Foreign secretaries have tended to deliver messages, not formulate them. So it was time to bring out the tough guy.

Also, it is no secret that President Fox has been taking a lot of heat from the opposition party, the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and the merciless Mexican press about sucking up to the northern ''Yanquis.'' This criticism of Fox is not new but has grown in boldness since 9/11 and attendant U.S. concerns about border security placed immigration reform on the congressional and administration's back burner.

The Mexican psyche has suffered from a vague distrust of the U.S. for eons, possibly since they lost in the Mexican War in the mid 1800's. Suspicion and doubt about American motives towards its southern neighbor or a near-paranoia about U.S. exploitation of Mexico or its resources, including its people, has always lurked just in the background of U.S./Mexico relations. Perhaps the relationship has also been clouded by a measure of envy or even disdain that Mexicans have lived with as the U.S. grew and prospered in the last century, while Mexico languished for decades, trapped in revolution and instability.

The issue of how chummy Fox should be with the Tejano President of the United States really stems from their almost coincident inaugurations and the positive chemistry which sprang up between the two men early in their presidencies. The Bush/Fox axis was a new experience for Mexicans, used to almost being ignored by past American presidents or by the effete American State Department, normally concerned, priority-wise, with Europe or the Middle East. And, Mexicans, especially in the capital, perhaps reflecting a residue of arrogance from their short dalliance with French culture via Emperor Maximillian in the 1860's, have never been totally approving of the manners of their richer northern cousin. So the Bush connection was, and probably still is, a hair suspect.

But now, Mexico has spoken in no uncertain terms....on Iraq. The Mexican press over the weekend seemed almost bursting with nationalistic, macho pride as it reported and splashed ''OP-ED's'' that trumpeted the decision to vote ''for peace'' and for ''international unity.'' Brassy ''La Jornada'' (The Journey) went so far as to offer its readers a list of the disadvantages to Mexico from going along with the U.S. on Iraq. Nothing wrong with that, except the listing was articulated by the Iraqi charge d'affaires in Mexico City!

Not mentioned by the Iraqi are the reasons that Mexico may regret its decision to abandon President Bush and the group of ''the willing'' nations that want to be tough with the defiant Saddam Hussein, even to the point of war. To the mainstream American media, Mexico is a minor player and just one more recalcitrant buddy of France and Germany in the anti-Bush Security Council cabal. But to the conservative radio and TV talk-show hosts like Shawn Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, bashing Mexico for ''betrayal'' and ''ingratitude'' was a drawn out subject on Monday.

And the American public, concerned by pervasive state budget deficits and the possibly overblown but not insignificant burden of illegal immigrants using public facilities, might react even less favorably towards Mexico in the future. The less positively disposed conservative members of the Congress, already consumed by perhaps exaggerated assessment of the national security implications of our ''porous'' borders, will surely harden their posture against immigration reform. Even a fundamentally sympathetic President Bush has been handed a much tougher ''sale'' by President Fox and his messenger, Secretary Creel, should Mr. Bush wish to resuscitate the regularization of Mexican aliens in the U.S.

And in a crowning irony, millions of Mexican citizens residing in the U.S. which Fox and the PAN (National Action Party) have been, for years, romancing furiously to assure their continued collective sending of $9 billion dollars (2002) back to the homeland, may now experience a less hospitable environment here. A strong goal of these self-exiled Mexicans has been to gain the right to vote in Mexican elections by a change in Mexican law; if they succeed, their party preferences could be affected by this Fox action. And the major UN-related dissing by the Fox administration of their chosen ''El Norte'' home may cause their comfort in the U.S. to be compromised, especially if they are here illegally.

The next few days, as the Security Council vote nears, will tell whether the lovers can reconcile. Mr. Fox might backpedal if there is excessive negative reaction to his decision, at home or among his co-nationals in the U.S. And Mr. Bush did call him personally over the weekend. We don¹t know what was discussed or what promises might have been made. Perhaps Fox said, ''No te preocupes, Jorge, we can always abstain,'' and possibly Mr. Bush said, ''You don¹t get it, Vicente; I need nueve votos!''

Watch this space! --------------------- Fernando Oaxaca, a long-time political and community activist in Los Angeles, can be reached at lamextex@ix.netcom.com.

This is stale information maybe. It appears that Mexico may have seen the light.

Do Google News search on "Mexico", lots of stuff comes up that make it appear Mexico is behind the US, including this:

2003 12:04 - (SA)

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New York - Under intense pressure to vote with its northern neighbour, Mexico appears to be the first among a handful of undecided UN Security Council members to shift towards the US position on Iraq, The Associated Press has learnt.

The change in policy for Mexico - one of the most outspoken supporters of continued weapons inspections instead of war - was first presented in a key address by Mexican President Vicente Fox on Tuesday and then outlined in a new and confidential foreign policy directive obtained by AP.

In the meantime, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq is providing new information about its weapons and has reported the discovery of two bombs, including one possibly filled with a biological agent - moves that he said signaled real cooperation.

US President George W Bush, however, predicted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would try to "fool the world one more time" by revealing the existence of weapons he has previously denied having. He urged the United Nations to back US action against Iraq.

Mexico's shift comes after a weekend phone call to Fox from Bush and visits to the country by senior US officials and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. It could help Washington push a deeply divided council to adopt a resolution authorising war in Iraq.

Mexico's UN mission refused to comment on the new directive.

The United States currently has the support of Britain, Spain and Bulgaria but is struggling to find the other five votes it needs in the 15-member council.

France, Russia, Germany and China all support continued weapons inspections, while Pakistan and Syria, the two Muslim countries on the council, are not expected to support the resolution. That leaves the United States fishing for the support of Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Mexico and Chile.

There were signs on Tuesday that Angola could be swayed to the US position when Angolan Ambassador Ismael Gaspar Martins said he wanted more "dialogue with the United States to see how we can accommodate each other".

But to the Bush administration's frustration, Mexico has proven a most difficult vote to get.

While the two-page directive, in the form of talking points, doesn't explicitly commit Mexico to voting for the US-backed resolution, it comes close by saying that Mexico agrees the resolution's sole aim is to disarm Iraq.

"We know that this issue is of critical importance to the United States and to the Bush administration," the directive said.

The talking points were written hours after Fox told US and Mexican business leaders that Mexico supports the urgent "efforts to achieve the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq".

Shortly after the speech, Mexico's foreign ministry issued the directive to its embassies outlining a new position based entirely on Mexico's primary "national interest", which is its relationship with the United States.

The talking points don't mention weapons inspections at all. Instead the policy paper declares that Mexico will now focus its position entirely on the immediate disarmament of Iraq.

"Nothing is more urgent, no time can be lost in achieving this objective," it says.

The final point in the document emphasises Mexico's valued relationship with the United States and the need to define policy based on Mexico's national interests.

Mexican businesses, which rely heavily on US trade, had been pushing Fox not to alienate Mexico from Washington over Iraq.

"When Mexico thinks about its vote - because it's absurd to think that countries vote their feelings, when they really vote on their interests -then our main interests are on the U.S. side," said Carlos Rojas Magnon, president of the Mexican Foreign Trade Council.

But the most intense pressure came directly from Washington.

In the past three weeks, state department officials including Kim Holmes, the assistant secretary of state for international organisations, visited Mexico City, said Richard Grenell, spokesperson for the US Mission.

"We've expressed our opinion to Mexico on how important this issue is and we hope for their support," said Charles Barclay, a spokesperson for the state department. Barclay said the US wasn't engaging in any arm twisting.

But Mexican diplomats have previously described their conversations with US officials as hostile in tone and complained that Washington was demonstrating little concern for the constraints of the Mexican government whose people are overwhelmingly opposed to a war with Iraq.

"They actually told us: 'any country that doesn't go along with us will be paying a heavy price,"' one Mexican diplomat said recently.

Complicating matters is a backroom deal Mexico cut with Chile in which the two Latin countries would withhold support for the US-backed resolution unless the council's five powers - The United States, Britain, China, France and Russia - worked out a compromise.

"We're not for sale," one Chilean diplomat said on Tuesday.

But there was hope that a plan offered by Canada could reconcile the bitter differences posed by the US-British-Spanish resolution, which is seeking UN authorisation for war, and a French-Russian-German proposal to continue weapons inspections at least into July.

Canada, which held a rotating seat on the council two years ago, has circulated a two-page proposal suggesting Iraq be given until the end of March to complete a list of remaining disarmament tasks identified by the inspectors. The council would then be asked to vote on whether Iraq was complying with its UN obligations, diplomats told AP.

The Canadian ideas were well received by some of the swing voters the United States is trying to court, but it was unclear how the five veto-holding powers would react. - Sapa-AP

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Mexico in Bush camp?26/02/2003 12:04 - (SA) Print article email story

Mexico in Bush camp?
26/02/2003 12:04 - (SA)

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