Pleading for leaders to magically do something they dare not say

This editorial in the El Paso Times has been bugging me all day (ezrydn brought it up in comments as well). I’m not sure if it’s sad and pathetic, or sad with hidden code.
First, the editorial establishes that supply side prohibition doesn’t work

We’ve already committed to send Mexico more than $1 billion in money and technology to fight the drug cartels. Mexico has sent its army into battle against these military-style gangs that now control entire cities, including Juarez. The money and technology aren’t working and the army is not strong enough to take back control of cities. […]
Calderon has made fighting the cartels his chief initiative as president of Mexico. But his army has only pushed cartels around from one haven to another.

And the editorial shows that demand side prohibition efforts don’t work either.

On our side, we’ve been fighting to keep our children and adults off illegal drugs since President Nixon officially declared the “war on drugs” in the 1970s. “Just say no” is a common phrase we use to educate against illegal drug use.

So what is the editorial suggesting? If supply side and demand side don’t work, what alternatives are there? Where should we look? Apparently, we need to look to the father-figures — Obama and Calderon — who, between the two of them, can win the war through the sheer power of their offices.

What’s left to see, however, is just how far these two powerful heads of state are willing to go. […]
How much do the two presidents want to end illegal drugs, the existence of the powerful drug cartels and the multitude of gangland-style killings that have the good people of Mexico hiding in fear and many people in the U.S. empowering the cartels by using their products?
How much?
And how far are they willing to go to stop it?

What does this mean? Is the editorial staff that completely whipped and despondent that all they can do is call for some deus ex machina to appear in the sky and win the drug war?
Or is this some kind of code?
What is meant by the question “how far are they willing to go…”?