Video: Why is declaring war on Mexican cartels so popular?
A growing number of Republicans have called for military action to address the fentanyl crisis. A new video from the Quincy Institute explores what is behind this idea.
The idea of going to war with Mexican cartels to address the fentanyl crisis has been growing in popularity among Republican members of Congress and GOP presidential candidates this year.
QI’s Adam Weinstein spoke to journalist and author Ioan Grillo on why the idea of declaring war on Mexican drug cartels has gained steam in Washington but why it won’t solve the crisis.
Grillo, who is the author of three books including 2021’s Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels, says those proposing military action have that right diagnosis. “They’re right when they say the fentanyl problem is a really serious, severe problem that should be at the top of the political agenda,” he says. “There is a really serious organized crime in Mexico and they are working with corrupt government officials.”
However, warns Grillo, “where they’re wrong, and very seriously wrong, is you can’t simply send in a couple drones and send in a couple American military and solve this. It just doesn’t work strategically. “
In January, Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the cartels. A number of Senators have endorsed similar proposals, with, for example, J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) telling NBC News in July that he wants to “empower the president of the United States, whether that’s a Democrat or Republican, to use the power of the U.S. military to go after these drug cartels.”
During the first primary debate of the election cycle last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that, if elected president, he would send U.S. special forces into Mexico on “day one.” Other candidates, including former president Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, have said that they, too, support a military solution to the fentanyl crisis.
Weinstein and Grillo also discuss the history of Mexico’s wars against drug cartels, how cartel violence has affected life in Mexico, and more.
Blaise Malley is a freelance writer and a former Responsible Statecraft reporter. He is currently a MA candidate at New York University. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, The American Prospect, The American Conservative, and elsewhere.
Top photo credit: A security official stands near site of the Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that a strong Kurdistan Region within a federal Iraq is a "fundamental and strategic component" of U.S. policy. Two months later, that policy was set on fire.
A relentless campaign of drone attacks targeting Iraqi Kurdistan’s military, civilian, and energy infrastructure escalated dramatically in July, as a swarm of Iranian-made drones struck oil fields operated by American and Norwegian companies. Previous strikes had focused on targets like Erbil International Airport and the headquarters of the Peshmerga’s 70th Force in Sulaymaniyah.
The attacks slashed regional oil production from a pre-attack level of nearly 280,000 barrels per day to a mere 80,000.
The arrival of Iraqi National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji in Erbil personified the central paradox of the crisis. His mission was to lead an investigation into an attack that Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials had already publicly blamed on armed groups embedded within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)—components of his own government.
Weeks earlier, the KRG Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Aziz Ahmad, had bypassed diplomatic channels to accuse "criminal militias on the Iraqi government payroll" of conducting the devastating drone attacks.
This system of state-sponsored destabilization did not emerge overnight. Its roots stretch deep into the fissures opened by the 2003 U.S. invasion, which shattered Iraq’s Ba’athist state and created a power vacuum that Iran, sharing a 1,400-kilometer border, swiftly moved to fill. Tehran nurtured proxy militias, now embedded within Iraq's political structures including the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMFs).
Key among them are hard-line factions like the Badr Organization – forged in exile within Iran during Saddam Hussein's rule and battle-hardened, having fought alongside Iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq War – and Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for thousands of attacks on American forces.
These groups are now integral components of the ruling Coordination Framework that backs Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. Yet, they are simultaneously implicated by Kurdish officials, and some American law-makers, in the latest attacks on the U.S.-allied KRG.
The July 2025 drone strikes come just after an eleventh hour agreement between Erbil and Baghdad. The deal’s terms force the KRG to hand over its entire daily oil production to Baghdad's State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). In return, the Iraqi federal government made good on a promise to disburse long-overdue salaries for May, a desperate lifeline for 1.2 million Kurdish public sector workers who hadn't been paid in months.
This desperate bargain was the direct result of the March 2023 shutdown of Kurdistan’s sole export route —the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline. That shutdown was triggered by an international arbitration ruling, which fined Turkey $1.5 billion for facilitating the KRG oil sales (without Iraqi government consent) since 2014.
The pipeline closure instantly severed the KRG’s independent revenue stream, and forcing it into total dependence on federal funds from Baghdad.
While Iran-aligned PMF factions publicly denied involvement in the July drone attacks, veteran Kurdish statesman Hoshyar Zebari levelled accusations against “the loyalist factions” (al-Fasa’ill al-Wilaiyah), a term specifically used to imply that these group’s ultimate loyalty is to the Supreme Leader of Iran, not the Iraqi state.
This conclusion is reinforced by the rhetoric of some PMF factions, which have consistently framed Kurdish autonomy as a foreign-backed conspiracy. As drone payloads struck Kurdish oil fields, Abu Ali al-Askari of Kata’ib Hezbollah, a powerful PMF faction, writing in a Telegram post, accused the KRG’s Peshmerga of maintaining ties with the “Zionist entity.” This open animosity fuels speculation that PMF factions were the perpetrators, leading analysts to view their subsequent public denials as strategic maneuvers to avoid direct U.S. retribution.
For the PMF, a perpetually weak Kurdistan is a strategic imperative, because in their worldview, Kurdish autonomy is synonymous with a hostile American military and commercial presence — a perception that is openly declared. Jafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the powerful Kata’ib Hezbollah faction, made this explicit during the 2017 independence referendum, declaring: “Officials in Kurdistan are American tools… Americans and the Zionist enemy are behind the separatism scenario.”
This long-standing conviction was only solidified in the months leading up to the attacks, when KRG Prime Minister Barzani signed new multi-billion dollar energy deals with U.S. firms, effectively confirming the PMF’s narrative and anchoring the region's economy to the West.
Moreover, beyond the immediate crisis within Iraq, Washington's own policy towards Iraqi Kurdistan is caught in a strategic trap, defined by three interlocking dilemmas.
The first is the autonomy trap, which stems from Washington’s critical need for a stable, pro-Western Kurdistan not only as an intelligence platform but as the primary vehicle for achieving a key U.S. strategic goal: countering Iranian influence. This was a central topic in the February phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Prime Minister al-Sudani, where making Iraq "energy independent" — a project reliant on the KRG’s gas reserves — was explicitly linked to the goal of "reducing Iran's malign influence."
However, successfully empowering the KRG to fulfill this role as an economic counterweight immediately triggers the fear that a sovereign, militarily self-sufficient Kurdistan might reignite its independence bid, potentially shattering Iraq and destabilizing neighboring Syria, where the U.S. is simultaneously working to integrate Kurdish Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) into the Syrian Army.
An empowered and independence-seeking KRG would also provoke a severe reaction from NATO ally Turkey, where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is in the process of disarming following decades of armed confrontation against successive Turkish governments for an Independent Kurdish state.
This autonomy trap leads directly to the defense paradox. The fear of emboldening independence drives Washington's hesitation to provide advanced air defense systems, despite direct and public appeals. In a February 2024 interview, following Iranian missile strikes on Erbil, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani made the case plainly: “We don’t have the capabilities of defending ourselves... We are not necessarily talking about more U.S. troops. We want more military capabilities.”
Yet, for Washington, providing such capabilities would be interpreted by Baghdad as arming a sub-state actor against the central government. Consequently, U.S. military aid is limited by design.
Finally, beneath the immediate crisis lies a longer-term energy struggle. The Kurdistan Region possesses significant untapped natural gas reserves, coveted by U.S. firms operating under KRG contracts, but every barrel of oil produced without central oversight in Kurdistan is seen by Baghdad as a threat to its authority. Notably, the Oil Ministry in Baghdad swiftly characterized a string of oil and gas deals concluded independently between KRG and U.S. firms as "flagrant” breaches of Iraqi law.
This fundamental conflict places Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani at the epicenter of the storm. His political survival is mortgaged to the ruling Shiite coalition containing some of the very armed groups believed to have orchestrated the attacks.
Yet, his government’s ability to function is entirely dependent on the U.S., as Iraq’s oil revenues still flow into an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Secretary Rubio’s demands — to hold attackers accountable, ensure consistent payment of KRG salaries, resume oil exports through Turkey, and, crucially, block the pending legislation that would formally institutionalize the PMF and entrench "Iranian influence" — were therefore not just reminders of this dependency, but a set of conditions that are politically impossible for al-Sudani to fulfill.
This paralysis is a mirror reflecting the deep and irreconcilable contradictions of two-decades of American policy in Iraq, which have engineered a system of perpetual gridlock in which no single actor — neither Baghdad, Erbil, Iran-aligned actors, nor the United States — can achieve a decisive victory.
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Sudanese protester stands in front of a blazing fire during a demonstration against the military coup, on International Women's Day in Khartoum, Sudan March 8, 2022. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig
In a dramatic move last week, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced the selection of its own prime minister and presidential council to compete with and directly challenge the legitimacy of the Sudanese government.
News of the new parallel government comes days before a new round of peace talks was expected to begin in Washington last week. Although neither of the two civil war belligerents were going to attend, it was to be the latest effort by the United States to broker an end to the war in Sudan — and the first major effort under Trump’s presidency.
But the United States, which was planning to host the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), called off the talks scheduled for July 30 just before they were to begin because of disagreement with the Egyptians over the wording of a communique that was expected to be released as part of the summit.
The Egyptians, which have been closely aligned with the military-backed Sudanese government over the course of the civil war, opposed a portion of the document that declared that neither the current Sudanese government nor the paramilitary RSF could play a leading role in the new post-war transitional government. Egypt’s support for the Sudanese government places it in direct opposition to the UAE, which has provided military support to the RSF.
The RSF’s decision to form a new government took root in meetings in Kenya with leaders of other factions also opposed to the Sudanese government, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in February of this year. The different groups joined forces to outline what a future regime should look like, ultimately launching the Government of Peace and Unity in mid-April
As announced on July 26, the prime minister chosen to lead Peace and Unity is Mohamed Hassan al-Ta’aishi. He served as a member of the Transitional Sovereignty Council which was instituted to rule over Sudan in the wake of the 2019 coup that led to the ouster of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir. The presidential council, which will be headed by Mohamed Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti), is composed of 15 members, many of whom are RSF military personnel. Hemedti is the leader of the RSF military operation and the key rebel in the initial split with General al-Burhan, which served as the catalyst for the ongoing civil war.
The war, which has pitted the rival generals al-Burhan of the Sudanese government and Hemedti of the RSF against each other since it began in April 2023, has displaced over 12 million people and has caused arguably the most intense humanitarian crisis in the world.
The latest move by the RSF to put in place political figureheads to take charge of the new government increases the chance that the country’s political and territorial division will continue for years. Sudan is continuing to resemble other countries whose divided governments have caused years of political, economic, and security instability and chaos.
In Libya, for example, two opposing governments led by political and military rivals have each claimed sovereignty over the country and maintained legitimacy over portions of the nation’s territory since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2011 military intervention in the country. The result has been incongruent policy objectives between the rival governments, continued military engagements, and a stifled economy unable to escape from the grip of political and security turmoil.
Similarly divisive political systems have dominated Somalia’s recent history, with the northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland both claiming independence from the Somali government, which is in the throes of a years-long counterterrorism campaign against terrorist organizations.
The RSF’s announcement of a prime minister and presidential council was swiftly condemned by regional organizations. The African Union’s Peace and Security Council publicly asked that international actors “not recognise the so-called ‘parallel government’ which has serious consequences on the peace efforts and the existential future of the country” and also “refrain from providing support and assistance” to the new government.
Meanwhile, the Arab League Secretariat warned that the new government would “impose a de facto reality by military force” and risks turning Sudan — which is a member of the Arab League — into a country of “warring cantons.”
With Sudan further fissuring, the United States should follow up on its diplomatic success in the DRC by working intensely with Egypt to correct the point of discord in the communique, and bring together the three foreign actors in a postponed peace summit in Washington aimed at getting each to end its support for its preferred faction in the war. Ending the constant stream of outside military supplies and support for the two major sides in the civil war is the only practical way for the United States to broker an end to this war.
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Top photo credit: A doctor checks Jana Ayad, a malnourished Palestinian girl, as she receives treatment at the International Medical Corps field hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip, June 22, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem /File Photo
“Child Dies of Malnutrition as Starvation in Gaza Grows” (CNN, 7/21/25)
“More Than 100 Aid Groups Warn of Starvation in Gaza as Israeli Strikes Kill 29, Officials Say” (AP, 7/23/25)
“No Formula, No Food: Mothers and Babies Starve Together in Gaza” (NBC, 7/25/25)
“Five-Month-Old Baby Dies in Mother’s Arms in Gaza, a New Victim of Escalating Starvation Crisis” (CNN, 7/26/25)
“Gaza’s Children Are Looking Through Trash to Avoid Starving” (New York, 7/28/25)
This media coverage is urgent and necessary—and criminally late.
Devastatingly late to care
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has severely restricted humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, using starvation of civilians as a tool of war, a war crime for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Yoav Gallant have been charged by the International Criminal Court. Gallant proclaimed a “complete siege” of Gaza on October 9, 2023: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”
Aid groups warned of famine conditions in parts of Gaza as early as December 2023. By April 2024, USAID administrator Samantha Power (CNN, 4/11/24) found it “likely that parts of Gaza, and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine.”
A modest increase in food aid was allowed into the Strip during a ceasefire in early 2025. But on March 2, 2025, Netanyahu announced a complete blockade on the occupied territory. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared that there was “no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza.”
After more than two months of a total blockade, Israel on May 19 began allowing in a trickle of aid through US/Israeli “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) centers (FAIR.org, 6/6/25)—while targeting with snipers those who came for it—but it is not anywhere near enough, and the population in Gaza is now on the brink of mass death, experts warn. According to UNICEF (7/27/25):
The entire population of over 2 million people in Gaza is severely food insecure. One out of every three people has not eaten for days, and 80% of all reported deaths by starvation are children.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 147 Gazans have died from malnutrition since the start of Israel’s post–October 7 assault. Most have been in the past few weeks.
Mainstream politicians are finally starting to speak out—even Donald Trump has acknowledged “real starvation” in Gaza—but as critical observers have pointed out, it is devastatingly late to begin to profess concern. Jack Mirkinson’s Discourse Blog (7/28/25) quoted Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk:
I fear that starvation in Gaza has now passed the tipping point and we are going to see mass-scale starvation mortality…. Once a famine gathers momentum, the effort required to contain it increases exponentially. It would now take an overwhelmingly large aid operation to reverse the coming wave of mortality, and it would take months.
And there are long-term, permanent health consequences to famine, even when lives are saved (NPR, 7/29/25). Mirkinson lambasted leaders like Cory Booker and Hillary Clinton for failing to speak up before now: “It is too late for them to wash the blood from their hands.”
Barely newsworthy
Major US media, likewise, bear a share of responsibility for the hunger-related deaths in Gaza. The conditions of famine have been out in the open for well over a year, and yet it was considered barely newsworthy in US news media.
A MediaCloud search of online US news reports mentioning “Gaza” and either “famine” or “starvation” shows that since Netanyahu’s March 2 announcement of a total blockade—which could only mean rapidly increasing famine conditions—there was a brief blip of media attention, and then even less news coverage than usual for the rest of March and April. Media attention rose modestly in May, at a time when the world body that classifies famines announced in May that one in five people in Gaza were “likely to face starvation between May 11 and September 30″—in other words, that flooding Gaza with aid was of the highest urgency.
But as aid continued to be held up, and Gazans were shot by Israeli snipers when attempting to retrieve the little offered them, that coverage eventually dwindled, until the current spike that began on July 21.
FAIR (e.g., 3/22/24, 4/25/25, 5/16/25, 5/16/25) has repeatedly criticized US media for coverage that largely absolves Israel of responsibility for its policy of forced starvation—what Human Rights Watch (5/15/25) called “a tool of extermination”—implemented with the backing of the US government.
The current headlines reveal that the coverage still largely diverts attention from Israeli (let alone US) responsibility, but it’s a positive development that major US news media are beginning to devote serious coverage to the issue. Imagine how different this all could have looked had they given it the attention it has warranted, and the accountability it has demanded, when alarms were first raised.
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