When Hugo Chávez strolled over to Barack Obama with a book in hand and a sly smirk plastered on his face it was clear the Venezuelan president was up to no good.  Obama’s reluctance at first to even rise from his seat to accept Chávez’s gift – Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America – was a telltale indication that he wanted the encounter to be over as soon as possible.  But Chávez prolonged the handshake to the brink of awkwardness while slightly twisting the paperback’s cover toward the cameras and holding it high for all to see.  The book’s subtitle, Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, was all anyone needed to see to ascertain Chavez’s intentions.  Ironically, Eduardo Galeano is the same man who coined the term “democratoship” – an apt characterization of the style of government practiced in Chávez’s “Bolívarian Republic”.  To most of the hemisphere’s leaders, Chávez is nothing more than a self-righteous demagogue who happens to be sitting atop one of the world’s largest oil reserves.  To others, like Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, and the rest of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), he is nothing less than a champion of Latin American pride and glory.  Americans generally tend to agree with the former description, so the intense scrutiny that Obama has endured for his friendly reception of the controversial socialist leader has come as little surprise.  Senator John Ensign said “you have to be careful who you’re seen joking around with.  I think it was irresponsible for the president to be seen kind of laughing and joking with Hugo Chavez.”  Former House speaker Newt Gingrich warned that “everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he is acceptable.”  But despite the ominous forecasts of a mounting challenge to American democracy, the simple truth is that Chávez’s regime does not imperil the U.S. in an era when cultural identity – not political ideology – serves as the most fundamental element of international relations.

Obama’s approach to Chávez, and to the Fifth Summit of the Americas in general, has certainly stood in stark contrast to that of his predecessor.  Four years ago, prior to the Summit’s fourth gathering at Mar del Plata, Argentina, Morales led a grand procession of anti-Americanism aboard a train called the Expreso del ALBA, culminating in a dramatic address by Chávez before 25,000 people at a soccer stadium to denounce George W. Bush and the “Washington Consensus”.  The subsequent meetings accomplished little but to demonstrate a U.S. commitment to unilateralism, and leaders throughout Latin America left Argentina questioning whether the Summit and the American-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) still maintained a purpose.

All signs in Latin America seemed to be pointing away from the principles that America stands for.  But according to Latinobarómetro – an annual Chilean public opinion survey of 18 Latin American countries – while attitudes toward the U.S. have diminished since 2001, support for democracy has steadily increased throughout the region.  This trend seems to indicate that Latin Americans embrace American values, but they object to America’s means of advancing – or imposing – those values.  Evidently, when it comes to our neighbors to the south, the reach of American influence has exceeded its grasp.  The U.S. sorely needed to reassess its strategy toward Latin America.

The hesitation to diplomatically engage the more controversial Latin American leaders stems from the political ideologies embraced by Chávez and the Castro brothers.  But are ideological differences still a major source of international conflict?  Is communism still a legitimate threat to America?  Since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago, conflicting cultural and religious identities have become the primary root of conflict.  Today, Cuba is merely the shell of a Soviet-installed mindless pest propped up in America’s backyard to demonstrate the extent of Communism’s reach into the Western hemisphere.  Every other country in the hemisphere has reestablished relations with Cuba and advocates its reincorporation into the OAS, indicating the preeminence of a common Latin American cultural identity as opposed to differing political ideologies.  As for Chávez, his primary objective is not to spread socialism, but rather to realize his idol Simón Bolívar’s dream of a united South American continent.  Critics of Obama’s mild tone with Chávez would be better served by supporting the development of alternative clean energy sources, which could all but relegate Venezuela to irrelevance, rather than by continuing to support the Bush administration’s heavy-handed policies.  Continuing to treat Venezuela and Cuba as if they were legitimate threats is the most irresponsible action the U.S. can take in the region.  The only threat to American security and prosperity posed by Venezuela is if the chasm between Washington and Caracas becomes so deep that countries that do matter – like Mexico and Brazil – are pressed to choose a side.

Regardless of whether the Obama administration stands by its apparent intentions to move in a new direction in Latin America, it appears that the region will continue to coalesce under its common cultural identity.  A Latin America that operates collectively is far less threatening if it does not do so in explicit opposition to the United States, especially with China’s interest in the region on the rise.  The U.S. can choose to forge a partnership with its neighbors and incorporate itself into an “Americas” identity, or as Obama wrote in an Op-Ed prior to the Summit, it can “stay mired in the old debates of the past”, allowing obsolete ideological rifts to divide the hemisphere.  The general consensus at the conclusion of the Summit was that the hemisphere had reached a “spirit of cooperation” that had not been achieved in years.  Chávez has already announced his intention to restore an ambassador to the United States.  Raúl Castro also responded positively to Obama’s policy changes last week, and leaders from Brazil to Canada to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are praising the Summit’s effectiveness.  The “Obama Doctrine” of collective action and mutual respect has been embraced by leaders throughout the Americas.  The “renewed partnership of the Americas” that has emerged from the Summit is a long overdue change of direction toward a safe and prosperous future for our hemisphere.

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As we near the end of Obama’s first 100 days, it would be hard to argue that this Administration has been reticent about stating its policies on national security and foreign policy issues.  We’ve heard major policy announcements on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, climate change and nuclear proliferation, just to name a few of the big fish that have been thrown onto the crowded frying pan.  And given the number of high-profile officials that have been named to coordinate key challenges, it seems that President Obama is looking to put his name in the Guinness Book of World Records under “most special envoys named.”

Yet, despite what has been a relatively forthright presentation of policy shifts on many other issues, the Administration continues to be relatively restrained on changing policy toward Cuba.  True, the Administration is lifting some restrictions, but that is small potatoes when you’re starting from a trade embargo, which apparently is not open for debate.

On April 17, Obama will meet with his counterparts from the Western Hemisphere at the Summit of the Americas.  Cuba will not be in attendance, and the Administration has gone so far as to point out that Cuba is not on the agenda.  It is clear that the President will hear a lot about Cuba and say very little.  The question is why.

There is some political cover for Obama to move boldly to dramatically increase engagement with Cuba.  Senator Richard Lugar has publicly supported such a move.  Senator Mike Enzi co-sponsored the bill to lift travel restrictions.  The House bill on lifting travel restrictions also has sponsors from both parties, which seems to be a rare accomplishment these days.  The Cuban American National Foundation now pretty much declares current U.S. policy a failure.  And a recent CNN poll shows nearly three-quarters of Americans supporting diplomatic relations with Cuba.

So, again, the question — why isn’t there a more robust Cuba policy?  Quite simply, because there doesn’t need to be.

It might seem quite obvious to observers that the embargo does not achieve its stated goals.  It may be clear that we have never managed to isolate Cuba or destabilize the Castro government.  It is possible that everyone in the Obama Administration, most of the Congress and a majority of the general public believe that Cuba policy should be changed.  And you know what — it just doesn’t matter.

Cuba is not a national security threat.  Cuba is not a foreign policy problem.  Though many leaders at the Summit of Americas may try to convince Obama otherwise, our Cuba policy does not have much effect on our relationships with other countries.  Despite some convoluted assertions by U.S. Government officials over the years, Cuba is not a source of terrorists or WMD.  Cuba can be ignored.

What is Cuba then?  Using Administration calculus, a likely political liability that is better left alone.  Cuba is the grand gesture that could tie up the Obama Administration in a media frenzy for weeks.  Any bold action on Cuba could threaten to delay or even derail countless other more pressing foreign policy objectives.

After all, you don’t get those poll numbers (or support in Congress) if the debate becomes about supporting the Castro brothers.  I would strongly urge those in Congress who want a change in Cuba policy to stay home rather than heading out on codels to Havana.  Supporters of the embargo — which also happen to be a bipartisan group — will scorch the earth to keep the policy, and every photo op taken with someone named Castro helps them rile up their base.  Though Obama has done a good job surrounding himself with foreign policy stalwarts, he is still relatively new at the game himself.  I’m sure his staff is not interested in giving political opponents a chance to use “President Obama” and “soft on dictators” together in a sentence.

So the lack of a wide-reaching new Cuba policy may be nothing more than the Obama Administration deciding it has too many other things to do to waste political capital defending a policy shift that is sound but will not actually make that much of a difference in terms of making the U.S. safer or stronger.  There are no consequences to taking no action on Cuba, regardless of how ineffective and outdated the current policy may be.

So is Cuba worth it?  I guess not.

Maybe next year?

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The latest trend in media coverage of the Obama Administration seems to be to ask variations on the question, “Is he doing too much?” Most of these stories focus on the ambitious domestic agenda, but the scope of the suggested foreign policy overhaul, particularly when it comes to rethinking bilateral relationships, is no less dizzying.

Less than two months into the Administration, President Obama and Secretary Clinton have telegraphed their intention to change the landscape surrounding some of our most troubled relationships.  Clinton went to China on her first trip and emphasized cooperation over conflict.  Just a couple of weeks later, she sat down with her Russian counterpart and pledged to “reset” the relationship, despite handing FM Lavrov a red button that read “overload” in Russian.  While in Israel, Clinton dispatched two envoys to talk to Syria.  Same trip — invitation extended to Iran to sit down in the same room with Clinton and discuss Afghanistan.  Now, throw in the Congressional changes to the Cuba travel policy that Obama has supported.

For those scoring at home, that’s one member of the Axis of Evil, two A of E wannabes and our two biggest headaches on the Security Council.  I’ve personally blogged about the need to reach out to Iran, Syria and Cuba, and PSA recently put out a statement about renewing the U.S.-Russia relationship.  So I would humbly suggest to the media that the question is not whether Obama is doing too much, it is whether any of the other countries will respond as he hopes they will.

There is a question of moral hazard here.  When presented with an open hand, will these countries see any consequences in responding with a clenched fist?  After Bush’s belligerence, will they view Obama’s openness as a free pass to do as they wish?  They may view the transition to Obama in the U.S. as insulation from any real risk regardless of their actions.

You may notice that I haven’t mentioned North Korea yet.  The DPRK is also on Obama’s to-do list and provides an early example of the pushback the Administration should expect.  Just the wiff of an olive branch in the air seems to have riled them up, leading to an announcement of a missile launch and accusations that the U.S. is planning to invade.  True, the DPRK is the crazy uncle of the Axis of Evil, so it’s hard to extrapolate anything from its behavior.  Still, while the other countries mentioned do a somewhat better job of presenting a diplomatic face to the world, all of them have also made political hay over the years out of being in opposition to the U.S.  Those habits will be hard to break.  Already, Cuba is reportedly considering letting Russia use its bases for strategic bombers.  Iran has said the U.S. must change to have successful negotiations.  All of these countries are testing the waters, trying to determine exactly what the Obama Administration will be willing to do if rebuffed.

For eight years, the world has dealt with a Bush Administration whose negotiating tactics managed to make carrots look like orange-colored sticks.  In contrast, the Obama Administration runs the risk of seeming a little too eager to please.  Their efforts are not going to be any more effective than Bush’s if the folks sitting on the other side of the table believe that there aren’t any sticks at all.

Threats and bullying did not change these countries over the past eight years, but four years of polite conversation won’t be any better.   When the Obama Administration gets these countries behind closed doors, the negotiators need to be a little more forthcoming about the consequences of refusing to play ball.  After all, we still want these countries to change.  And these countries still don’t want to change.  With the Bush Administration, there was always the implicit threat of military action against rogue states, a threat that became impotent after the mismanagement of Iraq.  Obama is going to need a different set of sticks.

Maybe the answer is that he can use his current popularity worldwide to push our allies (and almost-allies such as Russia and China) to join us in truly turning the screws on the rogue states through a unified front of sanctions and economic isolation.  Otherwise you may see most of these countries deciding that there is more benefit to saying no to the U.S. than yes.

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A new report was released yesterday by Richard Lugar (R-IN) that supported a significant change in US policy towards Cuba.  It’s a sign that the policy of isolation that has continued to govern the US relationship with Cuba since the end of the cold war, could be changing.  This is a welcome development and is the type of policy that should get broad bipartisan support.  For too long, the US policy towards Cuba (at least at the presidential level) has been governed by interest group politics that reflected the hard-line approach of much of the Cuban American community living in the swing state of Florida.

Lugar writes,

After 47 years, however, the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of, “bringing democracy to the Cuban people,” while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further choices from Cuba’s impoverished population…. We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances US interests.

We can all agree that Cubans would be much better off with a democratic regime that respects human rights and is responsive to their needs.  The question, however, is what is the best way to reach that outcome – isolation or engagement.   Today there is growing agreement that this decades-long isolation simply has not worked.  It has not brought democracy to Cuba.  It has not strengthened human rights.  And, as Lugar mentioned, it has provided a straw man for the Cuban regime to blame for its own deficiencies.

The American public also seems to increasingly be on board.  A February 2009 poll released by Fox News showed that only 30 percent of Americans felt that we should continue the embargo.  In fact, recent polling of the Cuban American community shows that a majority (55 percent) wants the embargo ended.

It’s these types of common-sense solutions that counter narrowly focused interest groups that are ripe for bipartisan compromise.

This not to say that we should give up on human rights and democratization in Cuba.  Certainly not.  These should continue to be prioritized.  However, just as with countries like China, we have decided that sometimes a policy of engagement is the better approach.  Sanctions and isolation have their place and I’ve certainly been one to advocate for these tools for countries such as Burma and Sudan.  In his statement, Lugar even mentions their effectiveness in South Africa.  However, we must also recognize that such tools work in some situations and not in others.  We must not employ a one size fits all solution to these complicated problems.  Clearly, the history of the past several decades has shown that this approach simply has not been effective in the case of Cuba.  It’s time to try something different.

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Michael Landweber has rebutted my rebuttal using three basic arguments. They are:

1. If granted access, American business interests could coax the Castro regime into making incremental changes that benefit the Cuban people.
2. That leaving the embargo in place means doing nothing.
3. That Cuba is not the Soviet Union and we don’t even know if a Cuban Gorbachev exists.

Let’s take them in order. I’m a firm believer in the principle that the best indicator of future performance is past performance. Based on this line of thinking, I expect that American businesses operating in Cuba will no more coax the regime into moving toward its demise (that’s what we’re really asking of them isn’t it?) than Spanish businesses, Canadian businesses, British businesses, etc. For example, Spanish hoteliers happily assisted the Castro brothers by enforcing tourist apartheid at Cuba’s hotels and resorts for almost two decades. Cubans were not permitted to stay at such hotels, even if they had the money to do so.

You see the irony is that the regime’s capricious and arbitrary nature means that rather than having leverage to push for changes in Cuba, foreign enterprises have a vested interest in the status quo. Nobody wants to see their multimillion-dollar investments evaporate in an expropriation because they were perceived by the dictatorship as agitating on behalf of “counterrevolutionaries.” So Mr. Landweber’s “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em strategy” fails the test of common sense.

Mr. Landweber somehow misconstrues my support of continuing the embargo until Cuba makes significant changes as defeatism. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s been my experience that totalitarian dictatorships collapse under pressure, internal and external pressure. Gorki Aguila, the Cuban dissident punk rocker I mentioned in my earlier response to Mr. Landweber, was miraculously released by the regime on Friday and fined about $28 U.S. after being found guilty of a lesser charge of “disobedience”. Did a tourist intervene? Did the Spanish company Sol Melia or the Canadian Sherritt (both of which have extensive investments in Cuba) put in the good word? No, of course not. Gorki Aguila is out of jail today because of a global groundswell of grassroots support that arose thanks to the Internet. Raul Castro and his henchmen realized they had a public relations nightmare on their hands. For a regime that lives off propaganda the situation was turning disastrous.

You see we aren’t going to sweet talk Raul Castro, a man with blood on his hands, a man who ordered the shoot down of two American civilian aircraft over international waters in 1996, into becoming reasonable or into abandoning Marxism. The regime, as currently constituted, will never knowingly take steps toward its own demise which is why it only allows foreign participation in its economy in a very limited way in which it can maintain the maximum amount of social control.

So what is America to do? What can Americans do? We can help raise awareness of the Cuban reality. We start by countering Castroite propaganda and not repeating the myths of “free” Cuban healthcare and education (neither can be that great if people are literally dying to get away from it). We can stop perpetuating the falsehood that the United States is somehow responsible for the failure in Cuba of an economic system that has failed in every other country that has tried it.

How did Raul Castro come to the realization, earlier this year, that tourist Apartheid in Cuba had to end? The same way South African leaders came to the realization that the original Apartheid had to end, internal and external pressure. When the world’s attention was brought to the despicable state of affairs in South Africa, apartheid became an untenable policy for its government.

Rather than blaming the United States for Cuba’s sad state of affairs (which Mr. Landweber implies because he seems to think there are changes waiting to happen if only America would initiate them) he should join us in denouncing the injustices that happen in Castro’s Cuba. Rather than jump into bed with the oppressors we should be exposing the oppression.

Lastly I’ll add that of course Mr. Landweber is right in that the comparison of Cuba and the USSR is not a perfect analogy but there are similarities that can’t be overlooked. The fact is that Stalin or Khrushchev would not have made the changes the Soviet Union made during the 1980s . A changing of the guard needed to take place and the people had to live under the oppression until it was no longer sustainable in order for the cracks to appear in the facade. Yes, Ronald Reagan dealt with the Soviets, all the while building up the U.S. military and putting pressure on them. He supported dissidents and denounced Soviet communism for what it was, an evil empire. The Soviets were willing to concede some things, something that neither Castro the elder nor Castro the younger has been willing to do so far.

Mr. Landweber doubts whether there is a Gorbachev figure in Cuba. Perhaps he’s right. But one thing is certain, even many of Cuba’s Communist Party apparatchiks no longer believe Marxism-Leninism, as evidenced by the flight of many of their children to Europe and other countries in Latin America. They understand that the Castro brothers are rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Mr. Landweber apparently wants to throw the regime a life preserver. Besides, we don’t need a Cuban Gorbachev. A Cuban Lech Walesa will do just fine.

Mr. Landweber and I agree that Americans are for the most part ignorant when it comes to Cuba. We can thank the accommodating mainstream media for that. Nevertheless its not too late for him to join us in fingering the real culprits in the Cuban tragedy and putting some of that external pressure on the dictators that have lorded over Cuba for half a century. But maybe that’s just more wishful thinking.

Henry Louis Gomez is Cuban American and is the managing editor of BabaluBlog.com

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Maybe Henry Luis Gomez is right. My original post is probably no more than wishful thinking. Maybe there really is absolutely nothing that the U.S. can do to influence change in our neighbor a mere ninety miles away. Maybe we have to just sit by idly and wait.

But contrary to what Mr. Gomez says, I’m not a believer in the mystical power of free trade to topple dictatorships.  I don’t think that ending the embargo would lead to an instant dissolution of the regime.  Everything Mr. Gomez says could be true.  We could open the floodgates and get totally fleeced by the Cuban government.  A huge influx of U.S. dollars probably could help the regime survive. American businesses might be willing to invest on Cuba’s terms to get a foothold in the market, even if it means participating in a corrupt system. Perhaps nothing would change.

But I also believe that U.S. engagement in Cuba, through private business interests and public diplomatic efforts, might actually influence how the government behaves.  American businesses might actually create incentives through investment for the government to alter its economic policies. If we lift the embargo, even in stages, given our proximity and the certain demand that would arise for American goods and investment, it is possible that we could quickly become indispensable to the Cuban economy. And once you become indispensable, you have influence – something that we completely lack now. Perhaps there would be change.

There I go again with my wishful thinking.

Both Mr. Gomez and I have nothing to go on but assumptions. Neither of us knows what the effect of lifting the embargo would be.  We do know, however, what the result of fifty years of maintaining the embargo has been.  There has not been a day during that period when this regime was threatened.  If the objective is to topple the Castro regime, then it is hard to see the embargo as anything but a spectacular failure. I don’t understand why anyone would think that continuing the embargo is going to have a different result in the next five decades.

So what do we do?  How does the U.S. help create the environment for change in Cuba?  Right now, without a voice, we are stuck on the sidelines.  There is nothing for us to do but hope that a mythical Cuban Gorbachev appears one day on a street corner in Havana and leads a spontaneous march to democracy. That is what Mr. Gomez seems to be suggesting is our best course of action.

I’m not sure that any comparison to Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union is actually useful, but the connection has been made so I’ll jump on board. The U.S.-U.S.S.R. relationship can be viewed as a classic example of how engagement does not necessarily equate with appeasement. We had full diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R.  So when Gorbachev was ready for glasnost, we were ready to support him. Gorbachev himself was a party insider, a man who was deeply embedded within the system we opposed. He was a reformer, not a revolutionary. Gorbachev had a vision for the future of his country that finally held some common ground with ours, and because our policy toward the Soviet Union was constantly and obsessively recalibrated, the U.S. was in a position to react to him. We could have looked at Gorbachev and decided that because the Soviet Union had not undergone a wholesale shift to democracy on his first day in office that he was no different than his predecessors. Look at the new boss – same as the old boss. But we didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that Raul is Gorbachev. But given our lack of engagement, would we even know if the Cuban Gorbachev exists? If he does appear and opens the door ever so slightly to reform, will we be able to recognize the opportunity and have the political will to assist him, even if Cuba has not yet fully transformed into a democracy? Here’s a crazy idea: maybe if we reach out to Cuba through Cuban-American leaders, through active U.S. diplomats, through American businesspeople, we might encourage that person, Cuba’s Gorbachev, who has been silent up until now, to find the courage to speak out and lead.

So maybe what I’m really arguing for is flexibility. Maybe what I’m in favor of is engagement. Maybe my reaction to a deeply frustrating situation is to turn toward the possibility of a diplomatic strategy that seeks to create opportunities rather than remain determined to only react to concessions.

One thing that Mr. Gomez and I definitely agree on is that the American people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Cuba anymore.  Like I said in my original post, Castro can be ignored.  And unfortunately, so can Cuba. U.S. politicians don’t talk much about Cuba either.  Despite the flurry of commentary a few months ago when Fidel ceded power and the occasional stump speech on the campaign trail in Florida, Cuba is rarely part of our foreign policy conversations. After all, what is there to discuss when the answer to every question is to maintain the embargo. Why should we talk about doing something about Cuba when there is apparently nothing to be done.

So I ask Mr. Gomez, if we can’t lift the embargo until Cuba undergoes a full transformation, and if the embargo continues to be ineffective in forcing that transition, what is left to us?

You got it. Wishful thinking.

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What a wonderful world it would be if we could only wish our troubles away as Michael Landweber thinks we can.  He wants the United States to declare victory over Cuba’s Castro regime while at the same time making concessions to it and bestowing the legitimacy that the dictatorship has craved for the better part of fifty years.

Mr. Landweber mistakenly characterizes U.S government’s policy toward Cuba as one based on animus toward a single person, Fidel Castro, rather than on a thorough understanding of the system that he has forced upon his countrymen.  Though it’s now Raul Castro and not Fidel at the helm, the dictatorship remains unchanged.  Just ask Cuban dissident punk rocker Gorki Aguila who was arrested on Monday for “precriminal dangerousness.”  The repression continues despite the fact that Cuba is free to trade with every other country in the world.  Apparently Landwber thinks that American trade has some mystical power to do what trade from other countries hasn’t been able to, bring down an intransigent totalitarian dictatorship, but he doesn’t explain exactly how that would happen.  He can’t.

That’s because about 90% of the economy in Cuba is controlled by the state.  If American businesses were permitted to operate in Cuba they would, under the rules of the game as dictated by the Cuban government, only be permitted to operate as minority partners with state-owned companies.  They would have no right to choose their own employees or negotiate the wages with them or with independent labor unions.  That’s because the state supplies the workers, collects the compensation from the foreign investor and then pays the laborers about $20 a month.  I can’t quite grasp how becoming a minority partner to a murderous regime helps bring about the transition to democracy and observance of human rights that most Americans would desire for Cuba if they only knew enough about it.  You see the problem with America is not that we hate Castro but that we are for the most part ignorant of him and what his reign has really been like.

In order for increased foreign business activity to bring about the desired change in Cuba structural changes to the economy must first be implemented there, not the least of which is the restoration of private property rights and the legalization of a private sector economy with all that entails.  But the regime can’t make those changes and expect to stay in power for much longer. American investment in Cuba prior to such economic changes only serves as fuel to allow the bankrupt regime to continue to muddle along.  The dictatorship desperately wants the embargo to be removed without making any concessions because it has pretty much bamboozled every country it could and has run out of sources of capital.  If implemented, Mr. Landweber’s strategy would make the U.S. the last in a long line of suckers.

The embargo on Cuba was established when Castro expropriated about $1.8 billion in American assets, the largest such expropriation in U.S. history.  Are the Castro brothers going to guarantee that they won’t do that again, is Mr. Landweber?

Following Mr. Landweber’s logic, the U.S. could have won the cold war prior to Mikhail Gorbachev and the glasnost and perestroika he ushered in.  I, on the other hand, believe change must come from inside Cuba, as it did in the former Soviet Union, before anything the U.S. does can have a positive effect on the island.  When the Cuban Gorbachev emerges we will recognize him not only by his words, but also by his deeds.  Only then will the United States be able to negotiate with the expectation that the other side is doing so in good faith.  Until then we must not delude ourselves into thinking that we can wish the Castro dictatorship away.

Henry Louis Gomez blogs regularly on Cuba at www.babalublog.com

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Apparently, Fidel Castro is not dead.

He watched the Olympics and he’s not happy about what he saw. Castro said that Cuban boxers were “robbed” by corrupt officials and he defended the Cuban Tae Kwon Do athlete who kicked a referee in the face.

We’ve been listening to this kind of blather from Castro for five decades now. Maybe it is finally time for the U.S. to stop paying attention to the incoherent ramblings of an ailing former dictator. Granted, the comments about the Olympics lend themselves to ridicule. But unlike the speeches and proclamations that Castro has spouted throughout the years, we now have the luxury of ignoring his words completely.

Maybe it is time to stop basing our Cuba policy on Castro altogether.

I know that there is more to our Cuba policy than our intense dislike of a single leader. But there is something about the U.S. view of Castro and the regime he personifies that is intensely personal, and that unfortunately clouds all policy decisions on Cuba. There is a long and sad history that must be respected, but it must not render us impotent to act.

Unfortunately, lifting the embargo on Cuba will take a supreme act of political courage. It will require bipartisan support in the Congress and a President who can ignore the howls of outrage that will resound after his opening salvo. Neither Clinton or Bush wanted to grab this political third rail. Obama and McCain use different words, but say the same thing: we’ll change after Cuba changes. This is one foreign policy challenge that has broad bipartisan agreement to do nothing.

That’s too bad. There’s an opportunity here. Maybe we just haven’t framed the debate correctly. Candidates need a message that scores applause on the campaign trail. Something that helps us achieve the catharsis we need on Castro. It is unsatisfying to watch him fade away without any consequences. Hit him where it hurts – his legacy and his ego.

Try this argument on for size: Now is our last best chance to stick a thumb in Castro’s eye. Lifting the trade embargo unconditionally would send a clear message to Fidel and the regime he’s leaving behind — You’re just not that important to us anymore.

By maintaining our trade embargo, we allow the regime in Cuba to grant itself a relevance that it does not deserve in the current geopolitical environment. Castro and Cuba have always been defined by allies and enemies in reference to their opposition to the U.S. Cuba is not a security threat to the United States. But because of our unilateral embargo, we continue to provide a symbolic calling card for people like Hugo Chavez. We practically write his talking points for him. If nothing else, a new U.S. Cuba policy could rob Chavez of one of his cherished propaganda stump speeches. Cuba only continues to hold such mystique on the world stage because our policy inflates its importance way beyond the reality.

With the exception of Iran, Cuba is the only country with which we have not reinvented our relationship since the end of the Cold War. A major reason for that is that there has been no change in regime – we are still faced with Castro. But now Fidel is a dying old man. There is still a Castro in charge, but Raul is no spring chicken. They are remnants from a different generation, a different era. Yet, our policy toward Cuba, and therefore our ability to affect any real change in that country, is also locked in the past with them.

So, let’s end the embargo. Let’s normalize relations. Let’s focus on having a voice in Cuba’s development rather than continuing to stay mute because of the past. Let’s continue to pound the regime daily on its human rights and anti-democracy record, but let’s do so from a position of strength with a strong Ambassador who is there to communicate our democratic ideals. Let’s admit that nearly fifty years of the embargo has not worked. Let’s force the new Cuban leaders to redefine their country in a context other than the Cold War.

But, most of all, let’s lay the groundwork to have a real influence on Cuba on that inevitable day when it finally has a leader whose last name is not Castro.

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