Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

The rock is the rising threat of US military intervention in Mexico; the hard place is Sheinbaum’s own party’s narco-politicians.

Late last week, as Mexico was still reeling from revelations that CIA agents are operating in Chihuahua, in direct violation of Mexico’s constitution and sovereignty, the Sheinbaum government received an extradition request from Washington for 10 Sinaloa-based individuals. They included the state’s governor, Rubén Rocha, and its senator, Enrique Inzunza Cázares.

The indictments pose the biggest threat yet to Sheinbaum’s presidency. If she bows to US pressure and agrees to indict Rocha, a senior member of Sheinbaum’s Morena party, and the other nine serving and former politicians and security chiefs, she risks opening the floodgates to more US extradition requests. If she doesn’t, she risks the wrath of an increasingly unhinged Trump administration.

The veteran Mexican journalist Denise Marker described the development as “extremely worrying” and “without precedent”. As one twitter commenter remarked tartly, it is indeed “without precedent”: drug cartels have operated in Sinaloa with total impunity and government protection for nigh on 80 years and not a single PRI or PAN governor has ever been extradited.

Speaking toAl Jazeera, Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-state armed groups at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, DC, said that indicting elected politicians in Mexican had “long been considered a very big step, almost a ‘nuclear option’”. And more indictments are likely to come, she added.

Rumours are already flying of an approaching second wave of extradition requests — including for three more governors, two legislators and the son of an ex-president, presumably Andrés Manuel López Obrador. For the moment, this is pure conjecture, but it would be in keeping with the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach to international relations.

🔴 En unas semanas vendrá la segunda OLA; Llegaran órdenes de detención para al menos tres gobernadores más , dos legisladores y un hijo de un “expresidente” y un secretario de estado ,

Perhaps that’s why the Sheinbaum government has declined the extradition request — for now. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) on Friday ruled out provisionally detaining the suspects indicated. The head of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Competition Control of the FGR, Raúl Jiménez Vázquez, said there was not enough evidence to justify taking such an action.

Until now, Sheinbaum has generally bent to the US’s will despite her constant reaffirmations of Mexican sovereignty and independence,reportsIoan Grillo:

Source: ZeroHedge News