La Jiribilla

What has changed in current U.S. policy toward Cuba?
Ramón Sánchez-Parodi • Havana, Cuba

A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

To answer this question we must define that the policy of the U.S. toward Cuba implies the forms, methods, mechanisms, actions and goals of the U.S. government with respect to Cuba, i.e. Cuba as a country, nation, state, government and society. It therefore has a strategic, long-range character, linked to elements of the U.S. national security and transcends partisan or sector peculiarities because it enfolds all levels (powers) of the U.S. state.

Therefore, it is the "State Policy "of the U.S. toward Cuba. Although this term is more political than legal, in the case of U.S. policy toward Cuba it has always had a certain legal foundation (For example, the theory of the ripe fruit; the Monroe Doctrine; the thesis of manifest destiny; the Joint Resolution of U.S. Congress of April 1898; the Platt Amendment; the Reciprocity Treaty; the blockade proclamation against Cuba; the "sanctions "of the OAS against Cuba; the Toricelli and Helms – Burton Acts; and many more. This is, using the English term: the law of the land, reaffirmed when all resolutions and regulations were incorporated into the U.S. Code. In other words, this state policy covers all relevant legal instruments in force that regulate the action of the United States of America toward Cuba.

In the present case, since the birth of the U.S. as an independent nation, this policy has had an ultimate goal: to exercise domination over the territory and people of Cuba.

As years, decades and centuries have passed, this policy has developed in different circumstances, scenarios and historical moments for which each president of the nation has had to make adjustments to preserve the strategic objective: to exercise domination over Cuba .

Accepting this definition implies that no U.S. president alone can change the ultimate goal of this policy. However, any one of them may modify its enforcement, according to the circumstances.

We can distinguish three main stages in this policy: the stalking (1776-1898), the domination (1899-1958, and the attempts of recovery (1959 - to date).

The first two stages were surpassed by historical events. It is the third stage in which the U.S. has failed to restore its domination over Cuba. We will not delve in the long history of what has happened in the more than fifty –four years. It shall be enough to just refer to the current circumstances.

The U.S. have failed in all actions carried out to restore its domination over Cuba: diplomatic and political isolation; economic and commercial blockade; launching of terrorism, sabotage and espionage actions against Cuba; promotion of internal subversion to provoke an armed counterrevolutionary uprising; invasion of the territory of Cuba by the regular armed forces of the U.S.

November 1980, when President James Carter was defeated in his run to be elected for a second term, marked the end of the only attempt made by an American president to radically change the U.S. policy toward Cuba.

From that moment on, without the U.S. government abandoning any of the modalities adopted in 1959, the U.S. policy toward Cuba started promoting a "regime change" in Cuba that entailed the "transition" to a capitalist society and, therefore, the creation of the conditions for restoring U.S. dominance in the island.

This adaptation of U.S. politics toward Cuba is also consistent with the dawn of the 21^st Century that brings along a number of circumstances that actually collide with American purposes:

• The process of updating of the Cuban socialist model that is driven by the decisions of the Sixth Congress and the First National Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba.

• The political, economic and social transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean that are shaping a historical trajectory aimed at discarding the U.S. hegemonic domination in the region.

• The loss of the imperialist world domination capacity of the U.S. In the last twenty years, the U.S. has gone from being the unipolar hegemonic power to a situation of omnipresence, but not of omnipotence.

At present, under the presidency of Barack Obama, the U.S. are at a crossroads regarding its policy toward Cuba: they either maintain the current policy aimed at restoring its domination over Cuba (which is doomed to fail) or change its strategic objective; abandon the attempts to restore their domination and promote a policy of coexistence with Cuba by respecting the independence, sovereignty and self-determination of its people.

During his first presidential term and so far during his second term, Obama has embraced and made his a light version of the crazy project of "transition" in Cuba sponsored by George W. Bush, adorning it with cosmetic measures to facilitate family travel to both sides of the Strait, " people -to-people exchanges " and easing of telecommunications, supposedly to promote " democracy " and "freedom " in Cuba. This clearly shows that it is not his purpose to make any changes of a substantial nature in U.S. policy toward Cuba.

The "boldest" step taken by the U.S. government has been to remove from the table the requirement that Cuba release mercenary subversive agent Alan Phillip Gross as a precondition to continue bilateral talks between the two countries on particular topics of mutual interest, such as migration issues and postal communications.

The political time remaining in Obama’s second term -while the economic, social and political crisis persists and he faces strong Republican opposition to his government actions and legislative initiatives, as well as serious international problems that demand his attention in addition to the obligations imposed by the period of mid-term elections next year, and the responsibility to contribute to the triumph of the yet unknown Democratic presidential nominee in November 2016- will not allow him to take any significant steps for an essential change in policy toward Cuba. In short, Obama has hesitantly allowed eight years of his two presidential terms to slip by without taking advantage of the historical circumstances that called for a radical change in U.S. policy toward Cuba. In that scenario, Obama will exit without pain or glory.