The Cuba shift

O revises Cuba relations

O is normalizing relations with Cuba to the extent that he can.

The embargo needs to be lifted by the congress.

Sure, there is outrage in Florida among some of the exiles and descendants of exiles, many of whom are people who lost, or whose families lost, property and wealth to the revolution and still dream of getting it back.

They are today's version of the Russian aristocrats who fled the communists to Western Europe, the French aristos who joined every monarchy in Europe in attacking the French republic that had abolished feudalism and redistributed lands, or some of the Chinese die-hards who fled with Chiang to Taiwan.

For them, the policy of embargo and isolation, which has indeed seriously harmed the island economically for five decades without bringing down the Castro regime, is a tool keeping constant pressure on the communists and the people of Cuba to restore capitalism and, in particular, to give them back their wealth.

And we could say the same for some US business and banking interests that also took losses to the Cuban revolution.

But it is a tool that has not worked in fifty years and has caused hardship not only on the island but for refugees with family both there and here.

And it is a policy that has drastically curtailed the freedom of Americans to travel to Cuba or do business with Cubans.

True though it may be that the embargo has economically hurt Cuba and the Cubans far more than it has hurt anyone in the US, the fact is it has closed for fifty years not only the US market to Cuban products but the Cuban market to US goods, at a not negligible cost to the US economy.

And yet it is notable that the arguments made against O's policy shift do not advert to these things, though they are the true source of grievance, but instead denounce O's willingness to have normal relations with tyranny, forsaking utterly the enslaved masses of the Castro regime.

If this purely altruistic, interventionist argument were any good it would have been equally good against American policy toward China since Nixon and American policy toward Vietnam since 1995.

And it would be good as well against many of the regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere with which the Republicans insist we keep up good relations, even providing military and economic aid, in pursuit of our own interests.

O is right.

Enough, already.

Detente is the best way ahead both for Cubans and for Americans.

As to the public at large, we had this ten months ago.

Most Americans Don't Support Cuban Embargo

Nationwide, 56 percent of Americans say they support normalizing relations with Cuba, with the figure jumping to 63 percent for residents of the state of Florida, the poll says. 

The figure for Latinos nationwide who support a change was also higher than among the general public, at 62 percent.

"This is a key change from the past: Cuba used to be intractable because Florida was intractable," wrote Peter Schechter and Jason Marczak in a report detailing the results of the survey. 

"This poll argues that this is no longer true."

. . . . 

The Atlantic Council poll, conducted in January, found that increased engagement with Cuba was relatively popular across party lines, with 60 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans favoring it.

Marco Rubio, not beloved of the tea baggers or the most devout rightists of his party, absolutely leaped at the chance to put both feet into his mouth on this one, fiercely identifying with what is already a minority view with decreasing support as the years go by.

Rubio at WSJ, yesterday evening

[I]t has been the policy and law of the U.S. to make clear that re-establishing diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba is possible—but only once the Cuban government stops jailing political opponents, protects free speech, and allows independent political parties to be formed and to participate in free and fair elections.

The opportunity for Cuba to normalize relations with the U.S. has always been there, but the Castro regime has never been interested in changing its ways. 

Now, thanks to President Obama’s concessions, the regime in Cuba won’t have to change.

Does China satisfy any of those conditions?

Did it when Nixon and Henry the K flew there?

Does Vietnam satisfy them, and did it in 1995?

Are there regimes elsewhere in the world that clearly don't satisfy those conditions that the GOP wants us to firmly ally with and support?

MR's fury is quite something.

Two more years to 2016.

With every passing day America moves further away from the conservatism that still totally dominates the Republican Party, fractured though it is one way as regards ends between Wall Street and Main Street, between the Christian right and the secularist libertarians, and another as regards means between the radical pundits and tea-baggers who would have shut down the government and pushed America into default and the more moderate leadership of the DC office-holders.

How do these guys manage to keep winning local and state offices?

Oh, right.

The racist, feminist, Howard Zinn propaganda of the left drives millions away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans, as though seeking shelter from the Helter-Skelter.

Update.

WAPO continues its rightward march, essentially echoing Rubio's complaints and whining about Vietnam, but not China, into the bargain.

Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba an undeserved bailout