U.S. Policy an Indefatigable Icon,

U.S. policy

An indefatigable icon, Fidel Casto continues to haunt the United States even after the Cuban dictator signed a letter of resignation. Castro is enigmatic and charismatic, and not universally reviled. The Cuban leader's panache presents particular troubles for anti-Castro legislators in the United States. On the other end of the political seesaw between the United States and its island rival are the Cuban exiles. The Cuban exile community in Miami has long been a vocal, powerful, and activist political force in the United States. Long-time congresspersons like Illeana Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart have created a counterforce to Castro's charisma in American politics. The outspoken Cuban exile community clings to its agenda as rigidly as Castro does to his. As a result, Cuban-American relationships remain unresolved. American foreign policy towards Cuba should ideally include common sense and political expediency.

Meaningful social, political, and economic change in Cuba cannot take place under the current policies of either Cuba or the United States. Both Cuban and American institutions and ideologies must be examined if relations are to become normalized. Given that Raul Castro and other high-ranked Cuban officials do not appear poised to change the regime, the United States needs first to work within the existing framework. The relative level of stability of Cuba's communist governmental hierarchies may inform American foreign policy. If Raul's regime is deemed as tenable as his brother's was, then the United States has little to hope for in terms of an organic domestic revolution. If, on the other hand, Raul's regime shows signs of weakness or instability then the Cuban exile community stands poised to assist a democratic capitalist revolution. The United States might also need to assess the level of cohesiveness of anti-Castro/pro-democracy political organizations in Cuba. Intelligence reveals "latent competing tensions between civilian and military factions within the regime," which does seem to suggest that Raul will have less clout than his brother (p. 17).

The views of the Cuban exile community must certainly be taken into account, too. Six Cuban representatives in the United States congress, five of whom were born in Cuba, assures that the prevailing voice in congress will be that of the hard-lined anti-Castro community (p. 136). Even more moderate exiles remain fiercely opposed to greater leniency with the Cuban government or the easing of travel or trade restrictions, which inhibits sensible or flexible foreign policy. The inflexible attitudes toward Cuba among the exile community are, however, rooted in deeply personal feelings born of the direct experiences with the loss of private property in Cuba, and the estrangement of family members. Such personal views are integral to the shaping of local politics in Miami-Dade County, which trickle up into the halls of Washington. The extent of the personal involvement with Cuba among the exile community was viewed in macabre media frenzy over whether or not to return Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba. Many Cuban exiles used the young boy as a political pawn, oddly clamoring to wrest the boy from his father. The nearly insane fiasco illustrates the intensity of opinions over American foreign policy towards Cuba.

These opinions are further intensified in light of the "complex humanitarian emergency" that might result should Castro's regime fall suddenly and without institutional contingency plans (p. 83). American foreign policy towards Cuba has occasionally entertained the use of force, but Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion has since made military means untenable from a practical or a political standpoint. Still, the Bush administration championed plans that intended to "hasten" the demise of the Castro regime (p. 87). Those plans evoked frightening visions of another Iraq: the costly job of nation building. The use of Guantanamo Bay as the legally questionable zone for holding suspected terrorists added to the eerie nature of Cuba-American relations.