A
smart friend reminds me regularly that everyone is talking about a coming
change in U.S. policy toward Cuba – except the officials who make that policy
in the U.S. government.
Still,
the talk has provoked unease among embargo advocates, who may be wondering if the
wheels are starting to come off the wagon that has dragged this foreign policy
relic well into the 21st century.
For
some time now they have tried to deny what Republican political operatives know
– that the Cuban-American vote in Florida split evenly between President Obama
and Governor Romney in 2012, that demographics dictate that Cuban-American
support for the embargo will continue to decline, and that Cuban Americans are
losing importance in Florida politics as Puerto Ricans and other Latinos have
increased greatly in number.
They
now see activism in their own community promoting engagement with Cuba (including
this recent television
ad
urging voters to defend their right to travel), and it’s coming not from the
Venceremos Brigade but rather from Cuban Americans who want change in Cuba and
are not tied to el exilio’s ideas.
They
are seeing a united front in Latin America and the Caribbean insisting that
Cuba attend the next inter-American summit in Panama next April, and they see
the Obama Administration accepting that political reality. A State Department
official told
reporters in Panama last month that the United States insists
on the meeting’s “democratic character,” but “if the Cuban delegation comes, I
believe it will be important that the region have the opportunity to hear its
vision,” as well as “the vision of the United States, the Pacific Partnership,
the countries of the Caribbean where democracy has prospered.” The result could
be the first serious meeting between the Cuban and American heads of state
since 1959, albeit in a multilateral setting. It would represent a
normalization of sorts, where we deal with Cuba as we deal with others,
expressing disagreement directly rather than through a policy of non-contact.
They
see that the Cuban government is reacting to the Ebola crisis by sending
hundreds of doctors to Africa to treat patients in dire need of care. The Obama
Administration has welcomed
Cuba’s help; our UN Ambassador says she is “proud” of
the work of “American, European, and Cuban doctors” in Africa, and adds that while
U.S. and Cuban missions “are not an integrated effort, we are working shoulder
to shoulder.” You don’t need a poll to figure that most Americans dislike
Cuba’s form of government but admire Cuba’s doctors and its government’s
decision to contribute so strongly. But if your supreme goal is to prevent
movement in U.S. policies toward Cuba, this is a
big problem; the Cuban medical mission is “thinly
disguised propaganda” and a U.S. official’s attendance at a meeting on Ebola in
Havana is a “disgrace.”
They
see a series of New York Times editorials calling on President Obama to
normalize relations, including one
today that calls for a prisoner swap to get USAID
contractor Alan Gross home before he marks five years in jail. (The editorial
prompted one dissident to tweet, “Let
Alan rot!” – give him points for frankness!) No one likes prisoner exchanges, a
sometimes distasteful but necessary adjunct to war and covert operations. If
this involved any situation other than Cuba today, a swap would be effected to
live up to the Administration’s responsibility to the man it sent to Cuba.
They
see that the 2016 Presidential campaign, which is about to begin, will have
something unprecedented: a major-party frontrunner calling not for
re-examination or adjustments to Cuba policy, but for the end of the embargo
itself. (Also, we may
soon have a Florida governor-elect who opposes the embargo.) Secretary
Clinton’s move is surprising because she, like President Clinton, used “tough”
approaches toward Cuba to counter the Republican rap that the Democrats have a
weak foreign policy. Her reversal leads to questions about how many more U.S.
political figures might be prepared to reverse long-held positions on Cuba, as
if they were held for convenience rather than conviction.
The
pro-embargo forces, along with the rest of us, are left wondering about
President Obama and his year-old musings about “updating” his Cuba policy. That
policy has been largely to embrace and continue that of President Bush, except
for some very constructive changes involving travel, remittances, and
diplomatic contacts. The economic sanctions in effect in 2008 are almost
entirely intact. It’s an approach deserving of President Obama’s favorite epithet
– a “20th century” policy. If there’s conviction behind it, it’s
hard to discern; it seems to be sustained by inertia. That inertia could last
two more years, or it could be swept away by a decision to form an actual Obama
policy toward eleven million neighbors in Cuba. That would make me a little skittish
too.
