Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans

01-20-2009 | AP

Mexico is becoming one of the world’s biggest security risks, according to the U.S.

Panama Star MEXICO CITY. While Panama faces a dramatic increase in violent crime, with daily gang killings internal drug wars, home invasions and attacks on tourists, it seems small potatoes compared to Mexico where theirs is a tsunami of indiscriminate kidnappings, nearly daily beheadings and gangs that mock and kill government agents.

The U.S. government and a growing number of experts say the country is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.

"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."

Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters this weekend that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama — perhaps a greater problem than Iraq. The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy. Mexico is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group.