For nearly five decades, the United States has pursued a policy toward Cuba that could be described as incredibly stupid.
That is the first line of Eugene Robinson's Washington Post column this morning, entitled as it this diary. As is typical of Robinson's words, whether written or spoken on MS-NBC, they are cogent, offering a succinct and potent analysis of an issue, one in this case which is not given the attention it deserves outside of the presumed political danger of engaging with a Castro-run regime in Havana. I will quote several additional lines from the piece, including this:
Other than providing Fidel Castro with a convenient antagonist to help whip up nationalist fervor on the island -- and prolong his rule -- the U.S. trade embargo and other sanctions have accomplished nothing.
But I will use the column to offer some different but related ideas.
In a single column Robinson cannot fully frame the issue. He does note, in the words right before my 2nd selection from the column, that we no longer have the cold-war rationale of the fear of communist expansion. I disagree with this framing in part. That was the rationale offered the American people in part, along with - hold on for what comes next - the idea that Cuba's leadership did not give its people Democratic freedom which therefore justified our actions. That should sound somewhat like some of the rationale given for recent American policies, say in places in the Middle East?
Let's be realistic. When Fidel Castro came to power in January of 1959, he had forced out a government that was in thrall to Americans - both corporate interests and the mob. This was at the tale end of a decade when it was not unknown for the US to intervene against Latin American leaders who were viewed as threats to US economic interests, sometimes on the grounds of the threat of a communist beachhead in our hemisphere - after all, that was the rationale used by Allen Dulles for the CIA's actions in the 1954 overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, which just so happened to have among its actions instituted radical land reform that antagonized United Fruit, a company whose legal representation was done by NY firm Sullivan and Cromwell, the base of employment of John Foster Duller, brother of Allen, before Foster became Secretary of State. And related to our concerns about Cuba, Foster Dulles argued against mere containment and in favor of liberation, and had played a role in the CIA's efforts to overthrow the democratically elected Mossadegh government in Iran and to restore the Shah - in part because he was able to portray the nationalist Mossadegh as communist leaning and because the US had strong interests in Iranian oil.
In fairness, interventions in Latin America were fairly common in the first 60+ years of the 20th Century. We relied upon the rationale of the Monroe Doctrine, expanded by the Roosevelt Corollary, through which we had been able to impose the Rio Pact. Thus it was not surprising that the Eisenhower administration allowed the planning of what became known as the Bay of Pigs operation to succeed. It can be argued that the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Castro regime is what lead to the sheer stupidity of US policy over the next half century or so. IT was only after Bay of Pigs that Castro turned directly to the Soviet Union for protection against the US - this leading to the October 1962 Missile Crisis, whose resolution included a US commitment not to reinvade Cuba, thus leaving our only weapons against the Castro regime economic actions.
Let us return to Robinson. He has been to Cuba 10 times, has formed friendships with a number of leading dissidents, who now have a sense of optimism about prospects for change. Raul Castro has allowed some dissent in ghe government-controlled media. Unlike his brother, he is allowing purchasing of technology such as cell phones and computers, although both are well beyond the means of the average Cuban. Raul also may be moving in the direction of private ownership of cars and an open market in real estate - both would represent significant reform. Bush has responded with cold shoulder, refusing any meaningful engagement.
Robinson does not have an overly idealistic view of Raul Castro:
Raúl Castro is not going to transform Cuba into a free-market democracy. But he gives every indication of moving down the path that China's leadership has taken, toward making his country a free-market, one-party autocracy. That's not a perfect outcome, as shown by recent events in Tibet. But it's impossible to deny that the Chinese people enjoy far greater personal freedom than they did, say, 20 years ago. Why wouldn't Washington want to encourage Havana to become more like Beijing?
Of course, China is (a) a potentially huge market; (b) the source of cheap labor for the production of goods for the US market; (c) supports our economy by floating much of our debt; and (d) a major military power whose influence and reach we cannot afford to ignore. We believe we can, as we have with other countries in our own hemisphere, continue to attempt to bully Cuba without having to worry about any serious risk to our interests.
And further, Florida is a swing state, and people place a great deal of emphasis on trying to draw support from the Cuban American community, which has tended to be dominated by hardliners with respect to the Castro regime. Bill Clinton did serious outreach to that community and was able to carry Florida in 1996. Al Gore was seen by some to be hurt by the Elian Gonzales incident to the point that when things like butterfly ballots cost him votes in the Jewish community to which he had reached out by putting Lieberman on the ticket, he had no margin of error. Of course, there are increasing numbers of Latins in Florida who are not Cuban, and many among the younger generation are far less driven by the rationales that were so much a part of the anti-Castro mentality of the earlier leadership.
Robinson gives Obama some credit for his recent remarks before the hard-line Cuban National Foundation:
Obama's into-the-lion's-den performance may win him some points for bravery, but it may not get him a lot of votes in South Florida. He has the right idea, however. The United States can attempt to influence any changes that eventually take place in Cuba, or it can harrumph from the sidelines. Several of Cuba's leading dissidents have urged the White House to end the decades-old trade embargo and the draconian restrictions on travel to the island. Bush pays no attention to those on the front lines of this struggle.
Yes, there is a struggle for the future of Cuba. And our policy, which has been in many ways counterproductive to our real interests in Cuba and real attempts at bettering the lives of Cubans, will have to change unless we want to find the change occurs despite our policy.
Let me return briefly to the Middle East. We continue a policy of armed intervention where we can because of concerns about oil. We badly mishandled the end of the Gulf War - whether it was foolishly allowing Saddam to fly his helicopters which helped enable him to suppress the uprisings against his regime we encouraged, or even the encouragement of those uprising without giving sufficient force, our policy was somewhat incoherent and resulted in Saddam strengthening his control. In Panama we had enabled Noriega to take power, and had little real trouble in getting rid of him when he was no longer of any use to us. We had played some role in Saddam's ascension, had found him useful as a tool against Iran after their revolution, succeeded thereby in building him up, but were unable to move against him directly - despite the urging of some on the political right - because our UN mandate and the nature of our coalition made that too risky for overall US international goals. So, as we did for different reasons in Cuba, we resorted to economic sanctions against his nations, sanctions that were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, which led to Saddam being able to claim a veneer of nationalism against the US actions, and in no way restricted his ability to consolidate his power and to worsen the lives of his people.
Obviously there are few direct parallels between Castro's Cuba and Saddam's Iraq. What is parallel is the arrogance of some Americans, particularly on the political right, in believing that we either have the right or the capability of reshaping without direct interaction, by economic sanctions or military action, regimes that we view as unfriendly to our interests, political or economic.
So in that sense it is worth recognizing what Robinson offers us. His conclusion about our policy with respect to Cuba is inarguable, and perhaps from what he has to say about that policy we can step back and think about our policy in general towards other nations. There may be things we can learn.
About Cuba? Obama is right that we must engage. It certainly can have results no worse than what our current policy has accomplished. And on that current policy, let Gene Robinson have the last word:
Stubbornly sticking with a policy that has achieved nothing in nearly 50 years is a pretty good definition of insanity.
Peace.