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Obama on Cuba: Another Heterodoxy?
Barack Obama is back with another challenge to the foreign policy orthodoxy. (His willingness to attack Pakistan and his ruling out of a nuclear attack to eliminate terrorists are two others.)
This time, it's about Cuba. Obama stated a position in a Miami Herald op-ed that makes sense but doesn't take into account the political world's customary set of panderings. Members of the Cuban exile community that has huge sway in Florida politics take a hard line against the island nation, and any politician who hopes to win the Sunshine State usually follows their lead. They want to cut off or heavily restrict remittances and travel to Cuba, so as to kill Castro's regime by a slow strangulation. Obama said that he wants to ease restrictions, so Cubans in the U.S. can visit their relatives on the island, and send money home if desired.
Hillary Clinton and the Republicans, who all support the status quo, attacked Obama for his position, arguing that it is borne out of naiveté and that it illustrates the lack of strength and seriousness that makes the Illinois senator unfit for the role of Commander-in-Chief. Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich, however, all said they agree with Obama in the wake of his Herald op-ed.
Stuff like this is getting Obama called gaffe-prone (see Hannity and Mitt Romney in this video), but in reality these aren't traditional faux pas; he's just refusing to accept conventional wisdom. Can you win a presidential election when you are frequently at odds with the think tanks, most of Congress, the powerful interests, and the status quo? Well, he was right on the Iraq War, and all those folks were wrong... What do you think?
I'm glad to see a "top tier" (I don't like that phrase but I don't have another right now.) candidate willing to buck the conventional wisdom that has proven wrong for decades, disastrously so in this decade. Though it's unfair to call his statements "gaffes", it's also unfair for anyone to suggest only Obama is challenging the Serious people, since other candidates have done it earlier to varying degrees, especially Gravel and Kucinich. Still, I am glad to see Obama finally shedding his excessive caution.
This really isn't about right and wrong. I personally think he's right on a great many things,(more than any other candidate, I'm pulling for him) however I'm skeptical that he can win.
Obama has opened an important door to discussion on Cuba, a topic which has mostly been off-limits in polite U.S. political society for decades.
The best contribution we can make toward freedom in Cuba is to practice it ourselves. Let's start by permitting Cubans in the United States the freedom to travel to Cuba to see their families. Then let's let everyone in the United States travel freely to Cuba.
We can go to China, we can go to Vietnam, and they're one-party Communist countries, aren't they? Beyond that, why not allow U.S. businesses to buy and sell to Cuba, just like they do with China and Vietnam? In addition, let's allow Cubans on the island to freely come and visit their family and friends here in the United States.
In the last four years, Cuba has purchased over TWO BILLION worth of agricultural commodities from the U.S. U.S. law requires they pay cash in advance and Cuba has never been a day late or a dollar short.
Cuba is our neighbor and we should act in a neighborly way toward it.
Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
I am reminded of one 60's candidate's (George Romney?) quote:
"I'd rather be right than President." He was, and he wasn't.
As for the Cuba question - Our policy of the last 50 years has worked so well in getting Castro out of power (ha!) that alternative policies seem to be something we should explore.
Perhaps the bigger story is the way this issue reveals the worldviews of three candidates: Obama has an idea; Romney responds with airheaded vitriol; Hillary thinks Bush policy is just fine.
As a person of Cuban descent whose family fled Cuba right after he took over I have a rather good point of view. I completely and totally agree with Obama, we need to make an effort to help instead of further hurting the country of Cuba. They are suffering more from our Embargo than being under Communist rule. If it wasn't for our embargo perhaps they wouldn't be in such bad shape. Who knows, perhaps I don't know much about it, but I will be supporting Obama all the way. He has a good head on his shoulders and wants to help those I consider my people.
With the embargo, JFK launched an overt war with Cuba that has been waged by every administration since.
Our government's only real problem with Cuba is that American tourists would quite quickly finance a successful socialist state 90 miles off our coast. Not a good example to those around the world aspiring to some degree of self sufficiency and certainly not a good example for the American people as a whole.