Falcoff Speaks the Truth About Cuba (and US)

Here are a some things that I believe about Cuba that distances me from the rest of my right-wing bretheren: that American policy should be based on America's best interest not Little Havana's, that nothing much is going to change in the Fidel aftermath, if it does change we (Cubiches in Miami) are probably going to be disappointed and that both sides of the straits have an inflated (and delusional) sense of what Cuba is and what it has to offer. Mark Falcoff from AEI has his own opinions about post Castro Cuba I could not agree more with his assesment of our (America's) overriding concern - stability not democracy:

As for fear of the United States, the harsh truth is that Cubans are living in an historical time warp when their country was far more important both economically and strategically; today it has nothing we need or want--not even beaches and warm climate. (One of the most important side effects of the Cuban revolution was the development of a major tourist industry in South Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.) The present U.S.-Cuban impasse is driven by historical grudges and ideology, not concrete interests.

What could those interests be? Unfortunately, the most important of all is not the restoration of democracy on the island--as desirable as that obviously would be--but the avoidance of a massive migration crisis, which is to say, a repetition of the Mariel boatlift in 1980-81, when thousands of Cubans scuttled to leave the island, including some criminals and mental defectives whom Castro perversely included in the mix. This explains why the Bush administration has validated the 1994 agreements by which we take a floor of 20,000 unhappy Cubans each year. What Raúl Castro was offering Washington last December 2 was a guarantee that no such crisis would occur as long as the two governments respected each other’s broader priorities. After all, Raúl Castro must be thinking, Washington had no problems with Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s long reign in the Dominican Republic or the Anastasio Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua; why can’t it make its peace with my leadership in Cuba?

Apart from implicit assurances to continue the current migration regime, Raúl Castro might well offer some other incentives to the United States, or rather, to U.S. business. Unlike his elder brother, he is said to be impressed by the Chinese model, which combines free markets, foreign investment, and iron-clad dictatorship by the army and the Communist Party. The lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and the ban on tourist travel would call into existence a new business lobby in Washington--hotel chains, airlines, and exporters of foodstuffs and construction materials--with a vested interest in good relations. Contrary to the persistent delusions of some members of our Congress, the Cuban market as a whole offers very little to the United States; it is a mere speck on the economic screen. But to those directly involved in commerce with the island, it would not be negligible. For example, the port of Jacksonville, Florida, exports a billion dollars’ worth of products (mostly foodstuffs) to the Dominican Republic each year, largely to provision its tourist industries. A similar or even larger figure could easily be imagined in the case of Cuba--certainly enough to justify the hiring of expensive legal talent on Washington’s K Street to downplay the unpleasant news from Cuba’s ghastly prisons.

To be sure, a transition to the Chinese model would require Raúl Castro to negotiate past some formidable obstacles. The Helms-Burton Law (1995) specifically names him as one of two personalities with whom the United States will not negotiate under any circumstances. It also enumerates a series of conditions for the United States to resume relations with Cuba. These would in effect require the entire dismantlement of the dictatorship and the calling to life of a full-blown democratic system. Indeed, Helms-Burton raises the bar so high as to suggest that its purpose was not so much to bring about democracy in Cuba as to prevent some future (presumably Democratic) administration from making its peace with the status quo. However, the very fact that Raúl is a less flamboyant personality and a (marginally) less delectable target for the wrath of the exile community can be counted among his assets. One or two gestures beyond business or migration incentives--such as the release of political prisoners, or at least an agreement to admit the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights and instate new rules which respect workers’ rights in joint ventures--might well shatter the fragile coalition that buttresses Helms-Burton and lead to its repeal. (As it is, the latest Gallup poll shows a majority of Americans favor resumption of diplomatic relations with the island.)

The biggest obstacle to Raúl Castro’s apparent dream of a seamless transition to a Communism that works is not, however, U.S. policy or domestic politics, but the fact that Cuba is not China. It is not part of a huge continent home to a millennial civilization, and it can never dream of global influence or power in its own right. Nor can it wholly insulate itself from the impact of the United States or Spain, much less similar countries nearby to which it is linked by language, customs, and history, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, or Colombia. Even Venezuela, currently in the thrall to a demagogue who claims to want to replicate Fidel Castro’s political trajectory, must appear to the island’s elite as a dangerously disorganized (that is, open) society excessively awash in consumer goods. Meanwhile, who knows what inconvenient political fallout will spill onto the island with the eventual return from Venezuela of Cuban doctors, teachers, and sports trainers currently seconded there?

In spite of Fidel Castro’s best efforts, Cuba is and remains a Latin American country, and it cannot escape forever the broader trends which have swept and transformed the region over the past half century. Perhaps this is why Raúl Castro feels the time has come to make peace with the United States before the currents of history overtake him and the regime he and his brother have created.