Obama's Open Hand Meets Cuba's Clenched Fist

Obama's Open Hand Meets Cuba's Clenched Fist
By José R. Cárdenas
October 13, 2015 - 10:55 am

Last week, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker became the second Cabinet
member to visit Cuba, following on Secretary of State John Kerry's trip
in August to raise the flag at the newly rechristened U.S. Embassy in
Havana.

The visit came on the heels of President Obama's second meeting with
Cuban dictator Raul Castro — most recently on the margins of the recent
United Nations General Assembly meeting — since he announced his
decision to normalize relations last December. Before that reunion, the
White House had announced a further lessening of U.S. trade and travel
restrictions on the eve of Pope Francis's trip to Cuba.

Then, to cap things off, the administration leaked to the Associated
Press that it is considering abstaining from the annual U.N. vote
condemning U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba.

Say this about the Obama administration: they are certainly all-in in
their desire to convince the Castro regime they want to turn the page on
the antagonistic relationship that dates back to 1959.

There is only one problem, however. The Castro regime has shown an utter
lack of reciprocity.

Indeed, no sooner had Castro met with Obama than he took to the floor of
the U.N. General Assembly to unleash a typical jeremiad against the
United States, chockfull of hoary Cold War rhetoric denouncing the
embargo, demanding reparations (to the tune of $1 trillion) for the
embargo, ordering the return of the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo
Bay, and calling for Puerto Rican independence (which Puerto Ricans do
not even want.)

Fresh off that time-warp performance, Cuba then introduced, for the 23rd
straight year, a U.N. resolution demanding the unilateral lifting of
U.S. sanctions.

Don't think the discordance isn't being noticed.

In a scathing editorial the Washington Post noted, "Mr. Castro has in
fact appeared to pocket Mr. Obama's concessions — and raise his
demands." Another in the Wall Street Journal asserted, "The U.S.
President has given [Castro] diplomatic recognition, easier travel by
Americans to the island, and returned some spies. But Mr. Castro now
says he won't make any concessions until the U.S. lifts the trade
embargo and returns Guantanamo Bay to Cuba."

Moreover, in a recent news story, the Post reported that, in response to
U.S. concessions, the Castro regime "seems to have done little beyond
reopening its Washington embassy." And that, despite all the hype, "No
new U.S. companies have been allowed to establish a presence in Cuba or
to hire Cuban workers."

In an eye-opening detail, the Post also quoted an unnamed administration
official who said that those in Congress who are promoting legislation
to lift sanctions "are desperate for gestures" from the Cuban
government, "and they aren't getting those gestures…. There's been no
real give at all."

Meanwhile, the esteemed rights expert Nat Hentoff, who is a senior
fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote, "The Cuban government's response at
each stage in the process of reconciliation has been a steady escalation
in the arbitrary harassment, abuse, arrest and detention of Cuba's
pro-democracy dissidents."

It is not as though the Castro regime's intransigence should shock
anyone. After all, with the Obama administration making all the moves,
why wouldn't Castro pocket them and demand more?

But there's something deeper to it than that. Several months ago, I
predicted that in his zeal to normalize relations, Obama would have more
problems with the Castro regime than he would with critics in Congress,
because it is the regime's very nature. The president has fundamentally
misread Cuba's geriatric rulers; they will never compromise on their
obsession with absolute power for a mess of baubles and beads from the
United States. In an October essay for the Real Clear World, the Cuban
American writer Carlos Alberto Montaner sums it up this way, "[Obama] is
incapable of understanding why Raul bites that hand instead of gripping
it. He doesn't know that old Stalinists kill and die with their fangs
always sharp and ready. It's all part of the revolutionary nature."

Still, there will be supporters of the president's policy who believe it
is working by not only "proving" that the obstacle to better relations
is Cuba and not the United States, but that the Cuban regime actually
"fears" closer U.S. engagement and therefore it is incumbent to press
on. But that is an academic point of little practical value. It may make
for spirited conversation at some diplomatic soirée, but it does nothing
to help the Cuban people reclaim their dignity and future. The result of
five decades of global indulgence of the Castro regime is that no one,
least of all a U.S. president bearing gifts, is going to force this
regime to do anything it does not want to do.

To be sure, U.S. isolation didn't work to change the regime's behavior —
it was undermined by an active lobby against it — but neither will
kindness. However, at least in the former situation, no U.S. flag flew
over that captive nation, legitimizing the Cuban people's oppressors."

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/13/obamas-open-hand-meets-cubas-clenched-fist/