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August 23, 2007

Hillary and Cuba

So Hillary thinks we should continue to restrict Cuban exiles from visiting relative in Cuba to once every three years, potentially forcing a choice between going to the funeral of a mother or a father but not both if they take place within a three year time frame.

''She supports the embargo and our current policy toward Cuba, and until it is clear what type of political winds may come with a new government -- if there is a new government -- we cannot talk about changes to U.S. policy,'' Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said

Steve Clemons sums it up over at the Huffington Post...

This is simply not mature-minded foreign policy thinking. I've written previously that one of the measures that should be applied to all of the candidates is how they would deal with not the easy questions in our national security portfolio -- but the tough ones.

Cuba is the easiest of the tough ones to solve. First of all, the Cold War is over. Cubans don't see a Soviet-led bloc as their primary patron anymore, but see Venezuela and China, which has grown through capitalism, as their closest economic allies today. Castro is no longer exporting arms and revolution -- but rather is exporting doctors.

And Hillary Clinton is stating that she is comfortable continuing a many-decades long, failed strategy to transform Cuba. And she thinks we "cannot talk about changes to U.S. policy" until the government changes?! That's ridiculous -- particularly given her own trips to China, a Communist nation of 1.1 billion people -- and her advocacy of normalization with Vietnam and her support of incremental steps forward with North Korea.

I solidly agree with Clemons. In addition I also think that the past several decades of experience engaging China, a vastly greater current military and economic threat, as well as the engagement with Vietnam that Clemons alludes to demonstrates the sheer folly of our policy towards Cuba. When we get communist regimes to open up to even a little bit of capitalism the people invariably run with it and the regime ends up holding a tiger by the tail. There is no reason whatever to think that Cuba would be any different.

The only possible "use" for our current Cuba policy which I can see is domestic political posturing. It hasn't improved the lot of the Cuban people one iota as far as I can see.

What do you think?

Posted by Kevin at August 23, 2007 09:00 PM