On March 31, President Donald Trump told major media the American military operation to end the Iranian dictatorship's nuclear weapons quest would conclude "within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three."

Trump said, by then, the U.S. will have achieved all of its military objectives, which includes destroying the regime's ability to threaten the Middle East and Europe with conventional weapons. Given the number of ayatollahs, secret police commanders and Republican Guard officers killed in the Israeli campaign targeting Iranian leaders, Trump is arguing Iran has undergone a form of regime change. Could we call it regime change by kingpin attrition?

Which segues into the Western Hemisphere's mingled drug cartel, gangster and corruption warfare and the Trump administration's calculated war on those gray-area yet deadly security threats.

During the first week of March, the South American nation of Ecuador emerged as a major battleground. Ecuadorian Army commandos, advised by U.S. special operations personnel, raided several suspected drug shipment facilities and drug storage sites.

Military analysts have noted that U.S. attacks on drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean have forced cartels to use Pacific Ocean routes to ship drugs to North America. Colombia and Ecuador have become major logistics and launch sites.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) made it clear that the U.S. military supported the operations. A SOUTHCOM press statement said the strikes served as a "powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism." A subsequent Pentagon statement on X indicated the U.S. had supported at least one raid in Ecuador with an air strike (a kinetic attack) at the request of Ecuador's government — which means the raid was closely coordinated.

Ecuador's President Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa touted the destruction of one particular drug cartel camp located in the northeastern province of Sucumbios (near Ecuador's border with Colombia).

"We destroyed the hideout of Mono Tole, the leader of the CDF (Border Commandos), and a training area for drug traffickers," Noboa wrote in an internet post.

The CDF (Comandos de la Frontera) is a drug gang but also operates as a semi-rebel political organization in its own "drug duchy." Over the years, the CDF has established a quasi-alliance with Colombian drug gangs. In a subsequent Instagram post, Noboa wrote, "For too long the mafias believed America was their territory. They could cross borders, move drugs, guns and violence without consequences."

In context, Noboa means the Americas — the Western Hemisphere. But his comment also works in the narrower focus of America. For several years, I've argued Western Hemisphere drug cartels and human traffickers operate as proxy armies in a "war of disintegration" waged against the United States and promoted by U.S. enemies such as China, Iran and Russia.

That's one of the Trump administration's justifications for the January 2026 raid on Venezuela where U.S. special operations forces and federal police arrested Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro on charges of drug smuggling.

The Feb. 22 raid on the Mexican town of Tapalpa (Jalisco state) by the Mexican Air Force and Mexican National Guard's Immediate Reaction Special Force did receive mass media attention. That raid killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) drug lord Nemesio Oseguera (aka El Mencho). Another case of kingpin attrition? I think so.

The CJNG is regarded as one of Mexico's most powerful narco-terrorist organizations, and until the February assault, it ran Tapalpa and parts of Jalisco as if they were a CJNG fiefdom.

When the raid occurred, both the U.S. and Mexican governments acknowledged the U.S. had provided intelligence information that aided Mexican forces. The U.S. War Department said an interagency task force "played a role" in the operation: the Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel (JITF-CC).

On March 19, Mexican marines conducted another anti-cartel combat operation in Culiacan (Sinaloa state). The raider marines arrested Omar Oswaldo Torres, a senior Sinaloa leader. It's likely the JITF-CC provided intelligence and advice. This is a hard fact: In February 2025, the Mexican Senate approved a request to let U.S. special operations personnel provide counter-terror and counter-cartel training for elite Mexican Navy special operations forces.

So let's return to disintegrative war. The term appears in chapter 13 of "World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change." In a disintegrative war, a "unitary belligerent becomes increasingly fragmented by secessions."

Ecuador's CDF and Mexico's CJNG had more or less carved out small "criminal secessionist enclaves."

The U.S. doesn't face classic territorial secession, at least not yet. It does confront social and economic fragmentation spawned and accelerated by corrupt local and state political machines, and deadly drugs and violent criminals crossing open borders.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Oscar Ochoa at Unsplash