End the Embargo

One of the most virulent and as a consequence most beloved anti-American leaders has finally decided to relinquish control in Havana. The end of Fidel Castro, long championed by his liberal friends as a romantic figure that overthrew a brutal US-backed regime (true enough, perhaps, in 1959) and built a socialist paradise of minimal unemployment and universal health care. Castro, considered "dead" by some humorists in the conservative media, is a relic of the Cold War, virtually irrelevant since the USSR imploded and he lost his biggest sponsor.

The Embargo, a Kennedy administration policy, has become more and more difficult to justify with each passing year. Jack and Bobby's ghosts and the politically potent Cuban-American lobby in the politically potent state of Florida have led the US to unnecessarily tie itself in knots whilst the rest of the international community criticizes our stubbornness. Regular readers of this blog know that I believe "restoring America's reputation" is an overrated aspiration, but the near-end of the Cuban familial dictatorship is a key opportunity. Sure, we have tried before, mostly Democrats, whether the unfortunate messianism of our thirty-ninth chief executive or the everybody-love-me impulses of the forty-second, yet the restrictions on US tourism and exclusion from the global financial institutions remain.

I think we remain haunted by our history. We "freed" the Cubans from the imperialism of the dying Spanish empire in the late-1890s, yet more or less took to the place as if it were Hawaii or the Philippines. Roughly sixty years later, as anyone who's seen The Godfather, Part II well knows, the s___ hit the fan in the form of a rejected major league pitching prospect and his movement. Our guy capitulated, President Eisenhower, embarrassed, signed off on a CIA-op to "restore" order, and the Kennedys, to put it mildly, obsessed over the bearded one in fatigue. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco when the US exposed itself as a government that cared but didn't care that much and numerous failed assassination attempts, we settled for a stalemate with the island ninety miles from home.

We need to get over ourselves; today is February 2008, and it isn't 1962 anymore. Robert Kagan makes some arguable points, yet I don't think he goes far enough. Unlike Iran, I see very little to lose from full-scale, unconditional, high-level talks between Washington and Havana. Yes, the end of a totalitarian regime is a "necessary" condition, but if the Cuban people wish to elect Raul Castro, even as a transitory figure, we have to accept that a true opposition candidate will not form in this current environment.

President Bush has long frowned upon ending the embargo, but as a retiring politician he is not subject to the political wishes of the Cuban-American lobby, whose leaders could pull hard on both the Democratic nominee and John McCain to keep the Kennedy line. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could accomplish much more (and do less lasting damage) if she abandoned her Nobel fantasies in the Middle East for something simpler in Cuba.

Obviously, Cuba brought nearly all of their economic and international misfortune on themselves; they chose to legitimize the rule of the dictator long after his revolutionary fervor had worn off, not us. They could choose to legitimize his brother, too. At this point I would prove willing to trade World Bank access for full amnesty for the legions of political prisoners who dared question (or more) the Castro party line, even if the Castros merely scoff at that offer.

Maybe it will take the next president to facilitate a successful transition to something resembling a democratic state, but with a bit of luck (and god help me if I begin to echo you-know-who), it needn't.