[Marxism] US Cuba policy remains in far-right hands

["Nasir Khan" <nasir.khan@xxxxxxx>]

Republished: http://nasir-khan.blogspot.com and http://sudhan.wordpress.com

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POLITICS-US: Cuba Policy Remains in Far-Right Hands


By Charles Davis 


WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (IPS) - Concerned over the rise of "realist" influence over 
the final year of the Bush administration's foreign policy might extend to 
Cuba, right-wing hawks are mobilising against any possibility that Washington 
might ease its hard-line stance, or its 46-year-old trade embargo against the 
Caribbean nation.

"Now, of all times, we must do nothing that will slow momentum toward genuine 
political change," declared Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of 
state for Western Hemisphere affairs under President George W. Bush, at a 
conference devoted to Cuba policy hosted by the influential neo-conservative 
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) here this week. 

"There will be plenty of time to help the Cuban people rebuild their economy on 
firm foundations," Noriega said, "but moving in prematurely to provide a 
modicum of material benefits to some Cubans may allow what's left of the Castro 
brothers' regime to bide a few more tragic days in power." 

The conference, which was held on the eve of President Fidel Castro's 
announcement that he is too ill to return to public life and take part in 
Cuba's upcoming parliamentary elections, came amid growing evidence that the 
administration's realists, led by Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice, have made major gains in asserting control over policy 
toward other U.S. nemeses, particularly North Korea, Syria, and even Iran. 

But participants in the AEI conference, including a senior State Department 
official, made it clear that no changes were in U.S. policy were even being 
contemplated in the year that Bush has left as president barring the removal of 
both Fidel and Raul Castro and "democratic" reform was well underway. 

"President Bush has clearly stated that changes in our policy will be driven by 
changes in Cuba," said Kirsten Madison, a deputy assistant secretary of state 
in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. 

"We want our businesses to engage in Cuba at a time and in a circumstance that 
they will be able to reinforce and support a process of change, not reinforce a 
repressive state," she said. 

While the State Department's top Latin America official from 2003 to 2005, 
Noriega, the conference organiser, sought to discourage Latin American 
countries from improving relations with Cuba and worked to increase support for 
Cuban dissidents and Radio and TV Marti. 

On leaving the administration, he joined AEI, a hub of neo-conservative and 
far-right foreign policy activism some of whose fellows and associates, such as 
former Defence Policy Board Chair Richard Perle and former Deputy Defence 
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, played key roles in planning and rallying support for 
the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Vice President Dick 
Cheney's spouse, Lynne Cheney, has been a long-time AEI "scholar". 

The United States maintained an across-the-board trade embargo against Cuba 
from 1962 until 2000 when Congress approved the limited sale of agricultural 
goods and medicine about 400 million dollars of which was exported last year. 

But the administration has strongly opposed all attempts to further liberalise 
relations with Cuba and repeatedly threatened to veto legislation -- passed by 
both houses of Congress -- that would lift the long-standing travel ban by U.S. 
citizens to Cuba. Indeed, it recently announced it was stepping up prosecutions 
of U.S. citizens who violated the ban. 

That policy has drawn protests not just from the Cuban government, which blames 
the U.S. embargo for many of its economic problems, but from much of the 
international community. 

Last October, the 192-member United Nations General Assembly voted for the 17th 
consecutive year to call on the United States to lift the trade restrictions. 
Only Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands -- all close U.S. allies -- joined 
with the United States to oppose the measure. 

When Democrats took control of the U.S. Congress in 2006, some expected they 
would attempt to loosen trade and travel restrictions to Cuba. Last April, New 
York Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel co-wrote an editorial with Arizona 
Republican Congressman Jeff Flake urging the new Congress to put an end to the 
embargo, arguing that "American openness is a source of strength, not a 
concession to dictatorships." 

But despite growing bipartisan support for engagement, the Democratic 
leadership has been reluctant to take on the issue. Many analysts suspect 
Democrats are wary of angering anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Florida, a 
critical swing state in November's presidential elections. 

In her remarks at AEI, Madison argued that ending the embargo would remove the 
U.S.'s only leverage over the Cuban government. 

"Were we to abandon the embargo we would be like every other country, bought 
into the system in Cuba," Madison told attendees of the AEI forum, arguing that 
critiques of the embargo were "utterly lacking in strategic context." 

"We would give up an important tool that might be used in a process going 
forward as things start to change," she said. 

She argued that no government led by Fidel or Raul Castro could conceivably 
promote democratic reforms and defined U.S. policy objectives in Cuba as 
"freedom writ large". 

"We know that what the Cuban people want is not just political rights, or not 
just economic rights," said Madison. "They want freedom." 

But Wayne Smith, director of the Cuba programme at the Centre for International 
Policy (CIP) and former head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, told IPS 
that those at the conference who believed that the Cuban regime was on its last 
legs were as deluded as their AEI sponsors were about the aftermath of the U.S. 
invasion of Iraq. 

"Look, Cubans want change, but I don't see any move whatsoever to overthrow the 
government," he said. 

Smith says a Cuban government led by Raul Castro is likely to be much more open 
and flexible than it was under his brother Fidel. He says the United States 
should promote reform by seeking to diplomatically engage the Cuban government 
and by putting an end to the embargo, which he believes has hurt the Cuban 
people more than it has the government. 

Human rights groups also strongly criticise U.S. trade and travel restrictions 
as being counterproductive. Human Rights Watch says the U.S. embargo has 
imposed "indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people", while Amnesty 
International says it has harmed "the weakest and most vulnerable members of 
the population". 

*With additional reporting by Jim Lobe. 

(END/2008)
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