Source: Boston Globe (MA) Contact: http://www.boston.com/ Pubdate: 19 Feb 1998 A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL DRUG DELUSIONS ABOUT MEXICO During the Vietnam War, Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas lamented an ''arrogance of power'' that he regarded as the true source of that war. The stakes today are different, but when a foreign leader such as Mexico's President Ernesto Zedillo complains about the annual humiliation of having to be certified by the United States as a properly zealous partner in the war on drugs, Fulbright's lament can be heard between the lines. If Clinton does not certify Mexico, then by law US aid to Mexico must be suspended. Washington is certainly entitled to ask its neighbors and major trading partners to cooperate in combatting the scourge of narcotics. Moreover, the inevitable corruption that accompanies the drug trade does more harm to Mexico, the transit country, than it does to the United States. But the insulting sham of certification serves only to engender resentment against the United States as a nation of sanctimonious hypocrites who blame foreigners for their own frailties. As a practical matter, certification accomplishes little. The laws of supply and demand that govern the narcotics trade are hardly affected by the exercise. When President Clinton is obliged to certify Mexico, as he did last year, despite flagrant narco-corruption at the highest levels of Mexican law enforcement, Mexicans and Americans alike may conclude that the entire certification process can be inverted for reasons of state. In the words of Zedillo: ''The balance of this process in terms of its contribution to the fight against drug trafficking after so many years is not only negligible but probably negative.'' Because of geography and the enhanced US-Mexican trade induced by NAFTA, Washington has a considerable interest in Mexico's struggles to establish a multiparty democracy, achieve social justice for marginalized groups such as the Indians of Chiapas, reduce crime, and cauterize the corruption that infects Mexico's political system. The certification process, with its arrogant assumption of US superiority, can only cast doubt on the possibility of Yanqui solidarity with Mexico's struggles.