Bush's Cuba Speech Put Politics Over Smarts Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Op-Ed, NY Newsday - May 22, 2002 http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmcco222715641may22.story Bush's Cuba Speech Put Politics Over Smarts By Terry L. McCoy On Monday, President George W. Bush missed an opportunity to make foreign policy history. It would have taken courage, as all foreign policy breakthroughs do, but he could have put U.S. relations with Cuba on a new path, much as Richard Nixon did with China in 1972. Instead of exercising foreign policy leadership, the president opted to play to domestic politics. Last week former President Jimmy Carter, in an act of considerable courage, stood before Fidel Castro, the Cuban people and the world and declared that it was time for a change in U.S.-Cuba relations. To get beyond the "destructive state of belligerence" of the past 42 years, Carter argued that both Cuba and the United States would have to make concessions if a new relationship were to be possible. Carter did not pull any punches for Castro. On live television, he told the Cuban people that it was time for them to have, and exercise, the same political rights enjoyed by others throughout the Western Hemisphere and the world. He challenged Castro to permit a national referendum sponsored by dissidents on the island - the so- called Varela project - in which Cubans would be able to vote on measures to make their country truly democratic. While Carter did not let Cuba off the hook, he challenged the United States as "the most powerful nation" to take "the first step." This means lifting the U.S. restrictions on travel to and from Cuba and ending the economic embargo against the island. Bush's response to Carter's invitation was disappointing but hardly unexpected. Before leaving Washington for Miami on Monday, he warned, "We will not lift the embargo until such time as the Cuban government holds free and fair elections." As much as elections in Cuba would be welcomed around the world, Bush and everyone else knows that they will not come in response to Washington's ultimatums for what amounts to unilateral surrender by the Cuban government, nor keeping in place the failed policies of Bush's nine predecessors. Bush's "Initiative for a New Cuba" is not about foreign policy. It is about shoring up support for the president and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, in South Florida's small but influential Cuban-American community, which greeted the president warmly on his arrival in Miami and hosted a $25,000-a-plate fund-raiser believed to have brought in $2 million for the Republican Party. Bush has again demonstrated that narrow political considerations are more important than national interests when it comes to Cuba. But the tide may be turning against the hard-line policy dictated by one set of political actors. Not only is this policy out of step with the rest of the world, but there is a growing chorus of critical voices in the United States, some from the president's own party, calling for engagement with Cuba, even while Castro is still around. Over the past several years, farm state Republicans have joined with liberal Democrats in Congress to sponsor bills that would lower travel barriers and begin to roll back the embargo against U.S. trade and investment. Supporters argue that engagement is more likely to produce change in Cuba. They also defend the right of Americans to travel and make a profit. A more surprising and encouraging call for change is coming from within the Cuban-American community, which helps keep Cuba afloat by sending $800 million a year to relatives on the island. Moderates are beginning to question the utility of continued confrontation and isolation. An April poll found that 40 percent of Cuban Americans in the Miami area think the embargo isn't successful, and a majority favor unrestricted travel. Even the Cuban American National Foundation has softened its stance. If pressure continues to build in Congress for change in our policy on Cuba, Bush may come to regret that he did not take advantage of the opportunity given to him by Carter to initiate a shift in U.S. policy. Then he would have had every right to demand that Fidel Castro reciprocate in kind to Carter's challenge. By taking the hard line, Bush has again let the aging dictator off the hook and continued the failed U.S. policies employed against Cuba for the past four decades. [Terry L. McCoy is professor of Latin American Studies and political science at the University of Florida.] Copyright (c) 2002, Newsday, Inc. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytact-05.22.02-12:07:00-19520