The decision by Fidel Castro to step down as the president of Cuba has given a new chance to the US to change its fossilized Cuban policy. Infact, there is no excuse for the US to continue ‘persecuting’ Cuba even while Castro was in power. The country was a threat as long as the Soviet Union was alive. Today things are very different. By no stretch of imagination can one envisage Cuba being a threat to the US.
The standard excuse and mindset is that Cuba is a communist state. If the US has accepted a much bigger Communist China, why can’t it accept a tiny Cuba? If the US can have good relations with countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and now Gaddafi’s Libya, why not with Cuba?
Opening new links with Cuban will only benefit US farmers. Alabama has shown how, by exporting excess wheat and chicken to that country. There are many Americans of Cuban origin, so quickly establishing close relations between the two nations will be easy.
Then why is President Bush going the opposite way? He has clamped down on cultural exchanges, cut back on remittances and limited the trips that Cuban émigrés could make to visit relatives still on the island.
The obvious reason is politics. Cuban Americans are a big vote bank, especially in states like Florida. Moreover the anti-Castro lobby in Washington is strong and will stymie any move at a rapprochement with Cuba. Another reason for the US refusal to change its Cuban policy is deeper and involves the American psyche. Castro’s Cuba has repeatedly repulsed American attempts at regime change. The Bay of Pigs was a national shame. Perhaps US will take some more time to get over this.
Comments
US should rethink its policy on every enemy country otherwise the whole world would feel the heat of Us international policies.
The US seems to forget at times that every one in the world is not out to get them. There is a tinge of paranoia. Look at the way it is trying to encircle Russia by allying with former Warsaw Pact countries. Putin could not have reacted in any other way.
Now the west is out to throw mud on him any way it can.