OBAMA JOINS THE growing list of American presidents who promised to normalize relations with Cuba, but failed. An article posted on the Princeton University website for American Foreign Policy avers, “As the presidential election of 2012 approaches, more and more critics are deriding President Obama’s pre-election vision of hope and change, targeting what they consider to be Obama’s naivete in foreign policy.” An argument could be reasonably made that all presidents have been naive regarding U.S.-Caribbean relations and, indeed, relations with all Latin American nations. We have not had a very good track record with any of them, but U.S.-Cuban relations have produced the most muddled results significantly including the Cuban Missile Crisis. Missteps with Cuba can be traced back all the way to Washington, George that is. 

Trade with Cuba attracted American merchants to Havana during the Revolutionary War. Inasmuch as the Spanish were more than happy to tweak the British at every opportunity, they opened the port to the Yankee traders until the war ended. Boston merchants in particular were annoyed by the capricious decision to not only close the port when the Americans and British made peace, but also confiscate their merchandise and accuse the Yankees of smuggling.

“Although the American government favored free trade with Cuba, it steadfastly opposed Cuban independence.” (The Cuban Policy of the United States: A Brief History by Lester D. Langley). Why? Independence from Spain would surely reopen trade between Cuba and America. Why would Washington and Adams, most notably, oppose Cuban independence? As Langley states, these presidents recoiled in horror at the prospect of the spread of negro republics through the Caribbean and the possible political impact they might have on America's slave South. Thus began an unspoken doctrine just as potent as the Monroe Doctrine, that guided U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America and persisted, some would argue, to this day.

This doctrine guided American politics in the mid-nineteenth century when influential men (women were not yet influential) in both Cuba and the United States dreamed of adding a Cuban star to the American constellation. However, Southern leaders feared that if it were to become a free state, it would beckon escaped slaves from their own plantations, and Northern leaders feared that if it were to become a slave state, it would upset an already tenuous balance in Congress. Thus, the dream of Cuban statehood languished.

The dream languished until the early twentieth century when the peculiar institution of slavery had been abolished, and Americans once again looked at the commercial potential of Cuba. Unfortunately for them, Cubans were already dreaming another dream, one of independence rather than U.S. statehood. The Cubans resented U.S. forces intruding themselves into their revolution. They chaffed when the Americans remained after the Spanish Dons were sent packing. They refused to be impressed by American gifts of modern roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals, until the Americans finally withdrew, indignant at being rebuffed by what they perceived to be their inferiors, negroes.

However, the Americans did not leave until they had extracted concessions as repayment for all the largess they bestowed on the Cubans. Many of the plantations owned by peninsulares, colonial Spaniards born in Spain, were now owned by Americans. Americans also owned key industries and utilities in Havana. The American mafia dominated the Havana tourist and gambling industries. And, most significantly, the Americans negotiated a treaty that allowed them to occupy Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity for a token annual payment. Guantanamo was a key naval base hovering over the shipping lanes leading to the Panama Canal. This final concession by the Cubans rankles to this day.

Thus, Cuban-American relations languished until the later half of the twentieth century, manipulated by a triumvirate of American businessmen, mafioso, and American-supported Cuban politicos until a charismatic rebel leader, Fidel Castro upset the apple cart, and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy reacted poorly. Every president since has continued the same diplomatic strategy of economic blockade. Judged solely on its stated goal, to bring democracy to the Cuban people, this strategy has failed. As the Princeton article explains, Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama have each voiced willingness to explore ending the blockade, but Castro has rebuffed every attempt. Driven from office by poor health, Fidel left his brother Raul in charge for a time, but returned when Raul voiced a willingness to respond in kind to American overtures, explaining that his brother's intentions were misinterpreted. Thus, popular opinion avers that no progress can be made in Cuban-American relations until Fidel dies.

So, let's not judge Obama too harshly. He is admittedly naïve in matters of foreign relations, but Cuban-American relations are a Gordian Knot that no other president has yet been able to solve. 

CURRENT EVENTS CANNOT be understood without some appreciation of the history on which they are built. The rise and enduring dictatorship of Fidel Castro is no exception. We must look to those people and events that paved his road into our lives. Even though he ruled and, as some argue, still rules over one of the poorest peoples and nations of the earth, he came closest to causing our annihilation by nuclear holocaust. Unlike North Korea, where citizens submit passively to tyrants, Cuba has a long history of revolution. 

The wealth of the new world was spread around the shores of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. In their haste to harvest riches, the Conquistadores initially ignored Cuba. However, once slaves began escaping Spanish outposts to become lost in the interior of the largest of the Greater Antilles, they turned their attention to it. Surprise of surprises, they discovered the area's greatest natural harbor smack in the middle of their hunting grounds. It was a place that could shelter their fleets from even the greatest of storms. Although Cuba promised no great riches of its own, it became the gateway to the riches of the New World, real and imagined – a staging area for conquest and a gathering place to assemble mighty treasure fleets on their return to Spain.

Cuba also became a bulwark against foreign encroachment on the region. Interlopers from England and France were easy prey for Spanish warships based in either Havana or Santiago de Cuba at the opposite end of the island. The smaller islands forced unwelcome raiders to pass close to one or the other of these two ports. Once adequate fortifications were erected on Cuba and sufficient naval and land forces garrisoned there, the New World became a closed empire. That, at least, was the theory.

In practice, neither England nor France paid attention to Spanish assertions, and considered the West Indies to be open waters. The treasure fleets assembled in Havana were fair game to these brazen raiders. They occupied islands that the Spanish had skirted as uneconomical targets. They became economical to pirates as bases for plundering the Spanish.

Inasmuch as the Spanish used Cuba as a garrison only, they never developed settlements there. They had no vision for developing an economy there. Those few Spaniards who braved the elements and the natives to establish commercial operations on the island, received little or no help or protection from their government. Their only defense at the approach of pirates was to defend themselves or flee to the government's fortifications, and return only if they had the will to try again. This attitude prevailed throughout the entire history of Spanish occupation of the island. Thus, there was no love lost between the Spanish who settled their and their cousins who remained on the Iberian Peninsula – referred to as Peninsulares – or their representatives in Havana.

Revolution became the legacy of Spanish neglect of their citizens who settled in Cuba. Fidel Castro's Revolution beginning in 1956 merely capped a long tradition that began in the seventeenth century when Don Francisco Manuel de Roca and 300 armed men seized the Spanish governor and threatened the authorities. It is extremely coincidental that Castro's revolution also was largely carried out by just 300 armed men. Other Creoles, those of Spanish descent who settled on the island, kept the spirit of rebellion alive with numerous other revolts.

Spanish merchants also abandoned their countrymen living in Cuba. They rarely visited, maybe only once every six months, leaving the Creoles feeling completely disconnected from their native country.

Surprisingly, Cuba's only brush with commercial freedom came at the hands of their traditional enemies, the British. Sir George Pocock, leading a naval force, laid siege to Havana in 1762. He destroyed one-third of Spanish shipping that was sheltering there. His officers divided more than 750,000 pounds of booty between themselves. After the suffering of siege ended, the Cubans enjoyed a ten month span of posterity under British rule. Merchants poured into the island's harbors drawn by free trade with islanders who coveted the manufactured goods they brought with them. They left with the agricultural products of the island, especially sugar which was becoming ever more popular in Europe. Almost a thousand ships visited in the brief period. The prosperity ended when England ceded Cuba back to the Spanish in exchange for Florida and Eastern Louisiana in the Treaty of Paris.

With the departure of the British, the revolutionaries returned. The foundation for Fidel Castro's revolution had been laid.  

TIMOTHY GATTO, former Chairman of the Liberal Party in America, opines that America loves to hate Cuba and that it was controlled "lock, stock, and barrel," by the US mafia prior to Castro's ascent to power in an oped piece posted on OpEdNews.com. Although I may agree in part with some of the conclusions in this article, I think that these two broad assertions do not necessarily support him. 

Although it is true that the US mafia controlled much of the travel and tourism industry, including gambling, in Havana prior to 1958, their influence did not reach very far outside of the city. Ordinary American businessmen controlled much of the rest of the island, including the vast sugar plantations, railroads, and public utilities.

Also, I do not see much evidence that Americans in general hate Cuba. Indeed, there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Most American tourists would love to see the island open to them once again, and American businessmen chaff at the bit to resume trade with the largest potential economy in the Caribbean. Even the Cuban-American community is softening its resistance as the older generation of Cuban refugees becomes a minority to their children who do not have the same imperative to return as they have grown up as Americans and this is their home.

Although some diplomats believe that relations between the US and Cuba cannot be normalized until the post-Castro era begins, I believe that there is strong evidence that Americans would welcome normalization now, even with Castro still in power. In fact, it might even be better to open talks now before Castro dies so that his supporters in Cuba will be denied the opportunity to resist normalization as a monument to his memory. 

Of course, those who disagree will argue that we cannot have normal relations with a tyrannical dictator, but the strategy of waiting for political prisoners to be freed before talking has not worked too well so far, has it? No, once we sit across the table from Castro, we will be better able to remind him of the words of his own patron, Jose Marti who said that "Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy."