On Leverage
By President Bush is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people.
As described by an official in a background briefing to reporters on Tuesday evening, Mr. Bush’s remarks will amount to the most detailed response — mainly an unbending one — to the political changes that began in Cuba more than a year ago, when Fidel Castro fell ill and handed power to his brother Raúl.
Here’s the problem. I want a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba as much as the next guy, but one of the consequences of adopting a 47 year hardline policy on the current regime is that your threats become pretty hollow. Short of invading Cuba or subjecting it to airstrikes, there’s just not much that the US can do to Cuba in terms of the “stick” part of diplomacy. All of the leverage is on the carrot side. This administration isn’t wholly averse to carrots; it eventually made the North Korea deal, and the Libya deal was far more carrot than stick based (even if it was primarily at the behest of Tony Blair), but given the combination of John Bolton’s continuing efforts to scuttle the North Korea deal and the power of the dread Cuba Lobby, we’re unlikely to see any realistic policy initiative. The consequence is that, whether or not Fidel manages to outlast his tenth American President, the political transition in Cuba will happen largely without US influence.
Cross-posted to TAPPED.