On Dialogue with Cuba: A Veteran of the Cold War Endorses Its Failed Policy

The news today tells the same old story: John McCain is the puppet. Political expediency holds the strings –

In an effort to win the pivotal state of Florida, Republicans have long counted on the support of the small but vocal Cuban-American community. Fearful of losing this block, GOP candidates have persisted in their vehemently anti-Castro rhetoric, even as official U.S. policy on Cuba earns increased condemnation from the international community.

John McCain is no different.

With his Democratic opponent all but assured, McCain has already begun flexing muscle on the Cuban issue, telling the Cuban-American community in Miami that Obama's willingness to engage Cuba in dialogue "would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators - there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in US policy. I believe we should give hope to the Cuban people, not to the Castro regime."

It's clear what McCain hopes to accomplish with this tired, empty, Bush-emulating rhetoric; draw lines between the Cuban government and the Cuban people, with himself placed squarely on the side of the oppressed Cuban people. Obama then ends up hand-in-hand with the "Cuban dictators."

Predictably, this black and white world painted by McCain is overly simplistic, and misses all the nuance of the Maverick's long-lost friend; reality.

As I wrote previously:

[This interpretation] is built on condescension towards the political will of the Cuban people. It must be understood that revolutions are not reducible to any one individual [or family]. The support of large segments of civil society was necessary to empower the movement in its formative years, and has bolstered it since it was institutionalized. Castro, though his fist is occasionally iron, does not rule with it alone."

To paint the battle as the Cuban people versus the brothers Castro is disingenous. To suggest that opening dialogue with Cuba is a waiver of the obligation to undergo fundamental reforms is counterproductive; there is nothing to suggest that dialogue will weaken our position, or that obstinately continuing our current policy will help reform Cuban society.

The truth is, our 45-year-old refusal to engage in dialogue has failed to produce anything except increased suffering for the Cuban people and an external enemy to rally around. Our embargo has not weakened the Cuban Revolution. It has strengthened it.

And yet McCain insists that we persist in our failed policy, forgoing logic to pander to a small but vocal constituency in a key swing state. This is pure politics, and unabashedly so; on January 25, in Miami, the Maverick told Cuban-Americans that "there's a person I want you to help me find when Cuba is free, and that's the Cuban that came to the prison camps of North Vietnam and tortured and killed my friends. We'll get him and bring him to justice too."

So, apparently, John McCain is not only committed to seeing Cuba free (read amenable to American whims), he is also committed to spearheading a vigilante mob that will bring guilty Cubans to "justice." In McCain's Manichean fantasy world, he only needs to be given the keys to the White House to commence this justice crusade — chasing Bin-Laden to the gates of hell just as soon as he's done lynching elderly men on a Caribbean island.

Obama, on the other, is willing to pave the ground for reform with his tongue. In doing so he would both encourage and reward the modest but significant reforms already occurring on the island, as well as, a priori, increasing our influence over Cuban society. The stakes are clear; we have everything to gain from talking to Cuba, nothing to lose.

Logic demands we send a new message to Cuba. The only way to accomplish that is to elect a new president who isn't intent on missing the boat.

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