U.S. policy toward Cuba is frozen in the era of the Cold War. It focuses on isolating the island and overthrowing Fidel Castro by means of economic pressure, mainly in the form of a trade and tourism embargo. It hasn’t worked and won’t.
Breaking free of Cold War policies has been impossible because the U.S. Congress has been persuaded—or for pragmatic reasons has accepted—that the only morally virtuous and effective policy toward Cuba is pressure and isolation.
Recently the possibility of a thaw emerged. Three former secretaries of state—George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Lawrence Eagleburger—and a number of other high-level past and present U.S. officials have called on President Clinton to authorize the creation of a National Bipartisan Commission on Cuba to review U.S. policy. Such a commission is exactly what Americans and Cubans now need.
The reality is that, short of invasion, the United States probably cannot bring Castro down or reform him. The most we can do is stop making life harder for Cubans.
Most Americans have substantially the same broad goals in policy toward Cuba: improving prospects for Cubans while securing U.S. national interests. The question is whether those ends can be best achieved in the post–Cold War world by ever greater isolation or by engagement.
The challenges for a bipartisan commission are to evaluate the past and suggest policies for the future. But first, there must be a commission. Those who favor intensified pressure and isolation do not want a commission or a comprehensive, policy-oriented analysis at all.
Since the demise of Castro’s Soviet ally, an increasing number of Americans have concluded that though isolation was called for during the Cold War, it is out of place today. The embargo gives Castro a scapegoat for his own repression and economic failures—he recently even turned down aid offered by the United States—and by increasing tensions in Cuba, it makes an eventual post-Castro transition more difficult.
Embargo supporters typically consider advocates of change dupes or traitors. The proembargo lobby consists mainly of Cuban-Americans, a declining number of activists, and legislators who don’t want to offend advocates of a policy that doesn’t interest most American voters.
William D. Rogers, a senior counselor to the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America—known as the “Kissinger Commission”—during the Reagan administration, was the first to recognize that a new commission might be able to both evaluate and, for the population as a whole, depolarize the Cuba issue.
Several months ago Rogers put the idea to Eagleburger, and together they found allies in former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, Virginia senator John Warner, and others.
In a letter delivered to President Clinton last October, Senator Warner and fourteen fellow senators called for “a bipartisan list of distinguished Americans who are experienced in the field of international relations” to “conduct a thoughtful, rational, and objective analysis of our current U.S. policy and its overall effect on this hemisphere.” As Rogers explained, “It must be a serious, bipartisan presidential commission chaired by someone as distinguished as Kissinger” if it is to be effective. Following the 1983 model, it should conduct hearings and write an analytic report that would be detailed, coherent, and readable.
Rogers, Kissinger, Eagleburger, Shultz, and many—but not necessarily all—others who advocate a commission believe U.S. policy should be changed. But for the commission to be successful it must also be a gamble, as the similar body was in 1983. Roger Fontaine, who was liaison between the earlier commission and the White House from his position on the National Security Council, says, “The commission then was made up of people who had no known position” on Central America when they began their work but who “became convinced by the evidence they collected.”
A Cuba commission must be the same. Rogers continues, “Issues involving Cuba are very highly charged in public dialogue. The commission must be as close to neutral as possible and avoid identification of conclusions with anyone who is already closely committed to one side or the other.” Those proposing it are confident an objective study by a prestigious, impartial group will conclude that change is necessary. The proembargo lobby probably fears the same, hence its opposition.
Ironically, Cuban-Americans have consistently been the greatest violators of the embargo, sending billions of dollars, most illegally, to their friends and families back home.
The irony is that over the years Cuban-Americans have violated the embargo more than any other group. They have sent billions of U.S. dollars, mostly illegally, to their friends and families in Cuba. In the logic of the embargo, dollar remittances are “propping up” Castro.
Earlier this month three Cuban-American congressmen wrote to the president in response to Senator Warner’s letter, calling the proposal for a reevaluation “a blatant attempt by some elitist business interests to do what they have been unable to do in Congress: circumvent the will of the American people.” Yet the commission, if properly formed, would clarify and inform Americans and Congress on the issue. If the policy really is supported by the American people, that will come out. But Americans who support the embargo in polls are simply registering a dislike for Castro, a feeling they share with members of the proembargo lobby and most commission advocates. Few Americans can give informed support for the embargo.
Members of Congress have their own concerns. After voting twice this decade to tighten the embargo, they see that Castro is more secure than he was five years ago. Most of the senators who signed Senator Warner’s letter voted for the 1996 Helms-Burton legislation but think it is now time to look again; four signers are Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee chaired by embargo advocate Jesse Helms.
The reality is that, short of invasion, the United States probably cannot bring Castro down or reform him. Until he dies, the most we can do is stop making life marginally harder for Cubans. The main obstacle to the authorization of a commission is the weakness of the U.S. president, who is preoccupied with scandal and doesn’t need another school of piranhas at his throat. Yet a serious commission with bipartisan support might raise his stature.
George Shultz summarized the argument in a letter last October to the president saying, “This commission is in the best interest of the United States and its conclusions and recommendations will provide the greatest opportunity for our country to determine the most effective ways to assist the Cuban people in their struggle to achieve increased freedom and self-determination and to prepare them for the transition to democracy.”
