Cuba

There he was, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, holding forth from the well of the Senate making his Alamo stand against some very innocuous provisions to allow Cuban-American family members travel to Cuba and for American agricultural producers to carry out the business they already do with Cuba more efficiently during a time of economic recession.

Most analysts I speak with say this was a picture of a man trying to put his finger in a dike, knowing it was about to burst. Senator Menendez is, you see, the highest ranking Cuban American in Congress and, with the Diaz-Balart brothers and Rep. Lehtinen in the minority, the last hope for defending the embargo against Cuba in the 111th Congress...

I haven't had time yet to digest the Obama administration's "relaxation" of restrictions in US-Cuba relations. I'm on a boat -- and sailing in the vicinity of Cuba tomorrow, though in Curacao today. But I will say that the Obama team needs to prepare for an onslaught of frustration and anger regarding anything that designates certain "ethnic categories" of Americans...

Something big is up in Havana. So big that some are saying that Fidel Castro has finally moved on to the next world -- though I don't believe this to be the case.

Others are saying that they saw Fidel out in public today on an odd shuffling, walk about, flanked by well armed security guards -- and a trailing Mercedes.

What has happened is that Raul Castro, now President of Cuba, has sacked his brother's closest followers and advisers in government...

[My latest entry on The Havana Note...]

The Havana Note talks a lot about the need for a new policy towards Cuba. Fifty years of failure is a shameful, bi-partisan indictment of how policy is made in Washington. Luckily, as we have been and will continue to show, more people recognize that change is on the way. But change for change's sake is foolish, and could easily backfire on the United States.

Fortunately, the emerging consensus on changing Cuba policy happens to coincide with another consensus, here in Washington, that America needs a major overhaul of all our relations with Latin America -- and with the rising influence of Hispanic voters.

But both movements lack strategic coherence.

Today I want to propose some ideas on tying these two efforts together in light of the great strategic challenges facing the United States over the next 30-40 years.

(Dimitri K. Simes speaking on Nixon's views on Cuba Policy)

Writing just before his death in 1994, Nixon called on the U.S. to end the failed policy of regime change. Nixon, the arch-Cold Warrior, knew that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of its troops from Angola, Cuba posed no threat to the United States. It is time, Nixon said nearly 15 years ago, for the United States to support the Cuban people.

What was true then is even plainer today. The New America Foundation's U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative and the Nixon Center hosted leading Nixon, Cuba, and national security practitioners on July 28, 2008 for a game-changing conversation about U.S. policy toward the 11 million people 90 miles off our southern shores. Moderated by Steve Clemons, the speakers included, Dimitri K. Simes of the Nixon Center, Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director on the National Security Council and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), former chief of staff at the State Department.

Watch the video here.

We hope you can join us for this event next week:

Thirty-seven years after Nixon went to China, the next President of the United States has another chance to split a non-threatening communist state away from an aggressive socialist power. Then, like now, there is an opportunity to really change the perception of the United States in the world and shift the conversation.

This event is co-hosted by the New America Foundation and The Nixon Center.

To register for this event, click here.

Start: 07/28/2008 - 12:30pm
End: 07/28/2008 - 2:00pm

New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW 7th Floor
Washington, 20009

Featured speakers

Dimitri K. Simes
President, The Nixon Center
Former Foreign Policy Advisor to Richard Nixon

Flynt Leverett
Senior Fellow, Director, Geopolitics of Energy Initiative, New America Foundation
Former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs, National Security Council

Check out this post from our sister site, The Havana Note:

What the Next President Should Do About Cuba

Fifty years of what is now a failed policy is enough. It's time to get a new policy for Cuba and with it a new vision for U.S. relations with Latin America. Check out our own Col. Lawrence Wilkerson as he describes what the next President should do about Cuba.

I just posted a blog over at The Havana Note, where I challenge the need for any kind of high-level summit to get a better outcome on Cuba. What we really need to do is get out of our own way.

Check it out at The Havana Note.

As the Japanese are wont to say, "business is war." Apparrently, that is how the Bush White House sees the recently-announced deal between Switzerland and Iran over a $42 billion natural gas contract. And, living up to the their own dysfunctional war planning record, the White House is now considering a retaliation against Switzerland where it hurts the United States most: by ending the Swiss sponsorship of the U.S. and Cuban Interests Sections. That will teach them not to mess with us.

Of all the pathetic evidence that the Bush Administration had degraded U.S. influence in the world, this is up there. Rarely have we seen how weak the man behind the curtain really is.

It also is an object lesson in global leadership. Part one of that lesson is that states will always seek to satisfy their own calculation of their national interests. Unless the interest equation is changed, inertia will rule in the affairs of sovereign peoples. The Swiss need gas, Iran has it. The Bush administration did not, apparently, care enough to insert themselves effectively in the Swiss decision loop.

Our own Col. Lawrence Wilkerson reminds us that the transition in Havana from Fidel to Raul Castro is almost complete, that the initial reforms expected by a Raul administration are starting and that United States policy toward the island continues to to relegate Washington to the sidelines. I would take it a step further: by maintaining the embargo, we continue to give Raul the gift we gave his older brother--the perfect excuse for poor economic performance and a ready-made tool for whipping up Cuban nationalism. I look more at this issue in Mind the Gap: How the Miami Generation Gap Could Shape Cuba Policy

Comrade and General Raúl Castro Ruz has now, it seems, taken full control of the reins of government in Cuba and el commandante y jefe, Fidel Castro—who for nearly half a century successfully defied nine (not counting Ike, who knew better) American presidents—has receded more and more into the background noise of a slowly changing Cuba. But what does this successful and now almost complete transition portend for the 11 million Cubans who deserve a better life?