Obama cracks the ice with Cuba: Our view
When a strategy — any strategy — is tried for half a century and fails utterly, the next step seems obvious: Change it. Try something new.
On Wednesday, more than 50 years after the United States broke off contact with Cuba in hopes of deposing Fidel Castro's revolutionary communist regime, President Obama finally tried something else.
A broad trade embargo, which can only be lifted by Congress, will remain in place. But full diplomatic relations will be restored, and talks on matters of common interest will begin. Trade will be selectively increased. Travel restrictions will be slightly loosened. And significantly for a closed society, more Cubans will gain access to the Internet, which only 5% have now.
Those steps and several others announced by the president — particularly an exchange of prisoners who had been a point of friction on both sides — should not be wildly controversial. They advance American interests with little risk.
Nor should they come as a great surprise. Since an ailing Fidel Castro stepped aside in favor of his brother, Raul, in 2008, both men have admitted that their closed economic system is a failure — a stunning reversal that previously led to some smaller steps toward normalization.
But Wednesday's announcements nevertheless mark a historic shift — to the impassioned objection of hard-liners, particularly those with Cuban ties, who see it as legitimizing and stabilizing the Castro regime.
Their argument is not entirely without merit. Despite recent microsteps away from communism, the Cuban regime remains tyrannical. According to Human Rights Watch, reports of arbitrary detentions increased 70% from 2010 to 2013, and jailing and beating of critics are common. At best, the Castros are hoping for a China-like combination of economic growth and political repression.
But that does not alter the fact that the 50-year policy of stone-eyed confrontation is a transparent failure. The Castros have not only survived but used the embargo to excuse their own failures and to incite anti-American passions throughout the region.
A new approach is needed, and the critics offer none.
Already, polls find Americans strongly in favor of more normalized relations, and even in Florida, opinions are changing. Young Cuban Americans open to renewed contact are replacing elders who implacably back the embargo, altering the calculus of presidential politics that has frozen the embargo in place, even as the Cold War that spawned it faded into history.
Now that Obama has cracked the ice, the logical next step is to lift the embargo itself. Its supporters would be better off trying to extract concessions rather than trying to preserve it indefinitely in hopes of capitulation.
The Obama administration insisted Wednesday that with or without the embargo, it will press for human rights, freedom and civil society in Cuba — goals with widespread support.
There's room to argue over how that should be done. But one thing is sure: The old way has failed. Confrontation is giving way to engagement, and soon Fidel, 88, and Raul, 83, will pass from the scene.
It's time to trust in the power of our ideas, and the strength of our economy, to lure Cubans through freedom's gates.
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