http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2014/11/04/cuba-estados-unidos-comienzo-de-un-deshielo/#.VFpCu0DMncc

Cuba and the US: The Start of a thaw?

By Esteban Morales Domínguez / Published in Bloqueo contra Cuba / November 4, 2014

Cuba and the United States seem to be slowly drawing closer together. I hope they are indeed. We have gone down that road often enough to know what needs to be done so that any possible progress won’t go to waste.

It was during the James Carter Administration that both countries took the most significant steps toward a certain “normal coexistence”, if not the full normalization of relations.

In light of that experience, we must go over the issues that eventually prevented the two countries from “normalizing” relations. I believe that the most important barriers to an agreement were, among others, the following:

Actually, even if there were plenty of meetings and negotiations, the American side never accepted to parley with Cuba on an equal footing.

The Americans always bent over backward to impose their agenda, to the point that their meetings became true run-ins.

With the United States behaving at all times like the great power with a free hand, totally unlike Cuba, the dissension between both countries became obvious.

The United States always approached the talks from an East-West perspective, taking Cuba out of the hemispherical context and placing it within the context of their disagreements with the USSR.

Their failure to negotiate on the basis of strict bilateralism gave rise to insurmountable obstacles and requirements that Cuba could not possibly meet to the American side’s satisfaction, such as the demand that Cuba pulled back from Africa, cut ties with the USSR and forgo any revolutionary activism at international level.

Finally, it was obvious during the talks that the United States, for one, was never willing to negotiate within a framework of ethics and honesty. Instead, they kept using diplomatic deception, artifice and trickery that in no way favored mutual understanding.

Of course, the internal and external situation at the time of the talks with the Carter Administration (1977-1980) was quite complex and difficult:

The United States was experiencing a serious economic crisis.

The Cuban-American community’s extreme right sectors were in a position to hinder any rapprochement, despite the dialogue that Cuba was then holding with a part of the said community.

Even if Cyrus Vance was on his side, Carter was under pressure from Brzezinski.

Carter’s intention of acting like a strong President was at odds with both his need to isolate Cuban international activism’s effects on the right-wingers and his lack of credentials as an authority on foreign policy, which made him highly dependent on the Secretary of the National Security Council.

The aggressive nature of the US Cuba policy was only challenged by a small number of American social sectors, even if it was not very popular with some figures of the Administration itself.

However, things are very different now. The days of the Africa issue and Cuba’s revolutionary activism and links with the USSR are long gone.

Besides, the political scenario has changed. Multiple contacts between both societies in the last times—namely, scientific, academic, religious and political exchanges; visits to Cuba by figures from many American sectors, including government officials and Congressmen; the decline of the extreme right; “people to people” exchanges; and, first of all, the extraordinary circulation of information about the reality of life in both countries—have of themselves laid the foundations of a spontaneous process of successive attempts at conciliation, a valuable way to make Cuba better known in the States and vice versa that keeps them from rushing blindly into important political decisions.

We’re talking about a historic period stretching over more than 50 years during which, like it or not, both countries have gradually come closer to each other regardless of the efforts to keep Cuba submitted to a policy of transnational blockade and isolation that has gradually eroded inasmuch as it has failed, in many people’s opinion, to topple the Cuban government.

Throw in the fact that Cuba has outlived all these moves and you have the reason that the US Cuba policy has taken a new turn altogether.

Today, this blockade policy is discredited at international level and, unlike before, largely frowned upon at home. This is why the prevailing opinion among many people is that it should at least be changed, and such is the political atmosphere that the Obama Administration is being compelled to breathe. Obama’s advantage is that the current Cuba policy has very little support.

As a result of those changes, Obama is facing an unheard-of state of affairs regarding the said policy. Never had there been so many signs that this policy needs to be changed or so many advocates of a change, including quite a few who had stood by it until very recently.

Consequently, Obama should not be afraid of paying the price for the elimination of a policy deemed to be mostly detrimental to what many understand as the United States’ interests in Cuba.

Furthermore, the above circumstances are further reinforced by some present-day facts:

The US Cuba policy-related hemispherical scenario has appreciably changed. Latin America and the Caribbean are no longer American policy’s secure testing ground. There has been a noticeable shift in the continent’s attitude toward Cuba, whose prestige in the region is an at all-time high; the correlation of political forces has mutated in favor of changes in a region where US power is being questioned like never before; and the inter-American system is falling apart, including the OAS and other institutions long in charge of pioneering US leadership in the hemisphere.

Little by little, the United States is drifting away from a number of new regional institutions, and it should ask itself why.

Many countries, including some long-time US allies, are increasingly rejecting the US blockade policy and strengthening their economic and political bonds with Cuba.

While the United States has stuck to the same old Cuba policy, the rest of the world has gradually turned to Cuba, and all their countless attempts to isolate the Island have only had the opposite effect, so now they are the isolated ones instead.

These are the reasons that the United States is finding it increasingly harder to maintain its Cuba policy. Here are some examples of the political cost of such an attitude:

The United States is faced with an already prevailing trend in the region that is conducive to two choices: either the Administration starts treating Cuba in a different way or its links with the hemisphere could end up irreparably damaged.

America’s allies are against the way it treats Cuba, so one of the principles behind the Helms-Burton Act has crumbled.

Thanks to its role in the struggle against illiteracy, blindness and, lately, the Ebola virus in Africa, Cuba is demonstrating that the United States is lagging behind in the aid effort rather than making alliances beyond any political differences in order to tackle problems that need urgent attention.

The United States is growingly isolating itself from the process of Latin American and Caribbean integration rather than wising up and trying to streamline its policies with the interests of most countries in the region.

The United States still clings to its views about the fight on terrorism, which also forestalls any broader and stronger coalitions.

There are many reasons why the United States must come up with a different Cuba policy, one that will be of benefit to them.

Judging by some recent statements made by its Secretary of State and its Ambassador to the United Nations, the Obama Administration has embraced a somewhat conciliatory language that, together with its willingness to cooperate with Cuba in the fight against Ebola, might facilitate rapprochement.

We hope the American government is serious about these steps to, as they say, “break the ice”, and also that their decision to collaborate with Cuba is followed by other gestures of good will. I’m sure both countries will benefit greatly from the détente.

For its part, Cuba has shown more than enough signs that it’s ready to sit at the negotiating table with the United States. And all Cuba needs is to do so on equal terms.

Neither country would grope its way down the path to normalization. Both must make the most of their extensive experience in these issues and use it as best they can in today’s circumstances to design a much-needed road map for the accomplishment of such goals.

November 2, 2014