Faith, heaven, earth, and Cuba

If we were truly seeing “the dying gasps of a failed regime” in Havana, as President Bush said yesterday, then it might be possible to interpret his speech as something other than an expression of his deep personal faith that change is coming to Cuba.

But as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote after the President’s second inaugural where he stated the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny” worldwide, “this is not heaven, it’s earth.”

And in Cuba’s little corner of this earth, it’s hard to discern the gasping government and the teeming opposition that would be poised to bring the President’s vision of change into earthly reality any time soon.

To be sure, there are human rights violations and there is opposition in Cuba, and beyond the formal opposition there is a widespread desire among Cubans, extending even into the communist party and spoken out loud, for profound change. And there is something else that the President ignored: a government that has a tiger by the tail, saying it too wants change, taking the public’s pulse, feeding expectations, studying options, figuring out what to do. As a result, the big question in Cuba today is how Raul Castro will govern, and whether he will deliver on the expectations he himself has raised.

One can’t fault the President for giving a visionary speech or for attempting to put political reform front and center at a time when the possibilities of economic reform are more prominent in public discussion.

But contrary to the Secretary of State’s view last May that Cuba has a “very nascent and fragile democratic opposition that is beginning to arise,” President Bush seemed to place Cuba’s opposition on the ramparts and spoiling for a fight, so much so that he thought it was time to tell Cuban soldiers and police that they will face a decision about “using force against your own people.” If they decide not to use force, they have now been assured by the President – of the United States – that there is “a place” for them “in the free Cuba.”

The President certainly did not try to dissuade Cubans from taking to the streets; he made clear that what matters to him is the final result of freedom, and if that comes at the expense of stability, that’s not a problem.

The President directed himself to those in Cuba who might be listening “perhaps at great risk.” Cuban officials, smarter than the average bear, apparently took about two minutes to call the President’s bluff. They ran 1,800 words of the speech in today’s Granma (pdf), and 15 minutes of it on Cuban television last night.

Which means one of two things: that everyone who reads Granma in Cuba today will be arrested by sundown, or that officials calculated that it serves their political interest for Cubans to know what the American President says about their country.

Why would that be? Here are a few guesses: to discredit the President’s assertion that they are weak; to highlight the President’s vision of possible violence and his indifference toward instability; to amplify his assertions that Cubans have no sense of community, that they cannot legally gather in groups of more than three, or that they cannot change jobs or houses; and generally to allow the President’s words to increase Cubans’ fear of radical change.

Before the speech, I thought the President was looking for a way to turn the page and start a new discussion about Cuba with U.S. allies. (Indeed, he did call for “the world to put aside its differences,” which is easy for him to say, since the “differences” are generated by his own policy.) But rather than diplomacy, his real interest seemed to be to draw moral distinctions between a United States bathed in virtue and other democracies whose conduct will “shame” them in the future.

The President concluded by leaving Cubans with “a mission.” His message seemed to be, in sum, “I have done what I can, and what I have done will not change Cuba; it is time for you to act.” The dying, gasping, failed regime ensured that his message was heard from one end of the island to the other. Now it’s up to the Cuban people to decide what to do with the new mission assigned to them.