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Cuba: What Now?
Thanatos
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, Fidel Castro is pretty clearly dying. He couldn't even get out of bed for his 80th birthday party. For the past several months, we have had a golden opportunity to open up trade & aid to Cuba, to expand our influence to them, to encourage freedom and democracy in a way that it has never been encouraged there before, and what have we done with it? Squandered it. We're too busy lying about Iraq and worrying about 2008 to be willing to piss off a few thousand fanatical zealots in Florida, who apparently control the entirety of our foreign policy, now. From the sounds of it, Castro won't be alive much longer, and what's going to happen when he dies? No one knows. It's almost certainly not going to be freedom & democracy, though. Chaos? Maybe. A smooth transition to another dictator? Maybe. Democracy? Hell no. Because we're too retarded to just say "hey, y'know, that whole Cold War thing is in the past, and we were kind of dicks to you and deserved what you did, anyhow, so why don't we make up?"
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I'm not sure Republicans want a change, and Democrats are probably weary to use any political capital on this right away.
Raoul won't keep power for long. Hell, the only thing keeping him in power right now is his brother. People see him as a temporary substitute while Fidel is down, not a permanent leader. So, then what?
Well, aside from a handful of older members, most of the members of the Cuban government are young people, people who were born after the revolution. People for whom a Castro-led communist Cuba is the only way it's ever been. Given this setup, I think a smooth transition to another leader is a likely possibility.
On the other hand, a lot of the government is heavy and strangely set up, and basically just held up by Fidel's strenght of will and personality. That part will fall apart without him. On that front, I expect massive (though peaceful) government reforms, possibly gradually as the new generation of Cuban leaders takes over.
I suspect that they are the only ones who really care, besides North Dakota bean growers and cigar lovers.
The thing is, it's hard to guage what kind of opposition exists on the island - and if there is any that could cause trouble for a transition from Fidel to Raoul, I don't see why they they would be held back by a nearly-dead Fidel and would be waiting until it's official.
*Fidel dies. Nothing happens until that day, as until then, the mere fact that he's still there and might, against all odds, recover, would be enough to deter anyone from trying anything.
*Once he dies, there will be some pockets of resistance. There won't be enough to deter Raoul from taking office, but enough to where he'll have to deal with that from day one forward.
*Raoul will be stuck in a rock/hard place situation: He could easily use the structure Fidel set up to quell the resistance, but the more he puts down, the more will pop up to replace it as people get angrier and angrier. Kind of like the Iraq insurgency.
*Meanwhile, the United States will sit back and watch until the day it becomes clear that Raoul is toast. At that point, we'll shoehorn ourselves in and support the insurgent leader that agrees with us most. We'll off the rest so that that leader has no opposition when Raoul is ousted. (Result: We take credit, but recieve none, for something that was going to happen on its own anyway, and wind up pissing off everyone who prefers Raoul to the insurgent.)
*The question is what will happen first: Raoul dying naturally, or Raoul getting offed by the insurgents.
Please do, hurry up and die.
I'm not really sure what will happen after he dies. I only really hope that cuba will change into a different country so I can actually visit the land in which my father was born.
What I'm getting at is: Even if Raoul can keep things together for a while, he is too old to rule a country, Cuba needs a leader at least 30 years younger. In my humble opinion, turning to Raoul is short-term-politics, we need to look at the future and think of who could really rule Cuba.
seriously, i'll bet 50$ that the average Cuban will have it alot worse if they decide to be like all other thirld world countries. It's a bit sad, if only Canada or something could take over and not friggin america.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
I can't help but agree with this. It's a dictatorship, yes, but things aren't that bad there. The best Cuba could hope for is democratic reform under young, fresh leadership and perhaps some economic decentralization. If capitalism barges in, they'll end up like post-Soviet Russia has: corrupt, volatile, and poor. (Well, moreso).
Oh, and it'd help if we swallowed our jingoism and traded with them.
We can't just up and trade with them CT2, they are communists oppressors who violate the human rights of their people.
Edit: Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about China.
Edit 2: Sorry again, I guess it turns out we trade with them quite a lot.
In so far as my research shows, Fidel will likely be succeded by his brother Raul - but his brother is 75, and any reign he might have aruably be a short one. Havanna wisdom dictates that their should be a Plan B.
Enter the other power players (See Also: Plan
Pérez Roque - forty-one-year-old Foreign Minister
Ricardo Alarcón - National party president who is sixty-nine.
Carlos Lage - the country’s economics czar, who is fifty-four.
In so far as their dispositions go, Roque is considered a hard-ass in the extreme. His nickname is "Fax" because he only regurgitates what Fidel says with idealistic zeal. Alarcón is considred a moderate, and the most likeable by Americans. Lage is a moderate as well, but more out of pragmatism than any real sense of political ideology. He's also responsible for most of the 90's economics reform, since economics was never Fidel's strong suit.
Lucky for many, Roque is not likely to be in power much longer. Any power he has was based on what Fidel gave him, and nothing more. When Fidel dies he's going to be scrambling. Likely it's going to come down between Raul, Alarcón, and Lage in a power struggle. Even with Raul being Fidel's brother, he's still not el Comandante. At best, he'll still have to share power with the players in Plan B. At worst, he's a puppet leader, and either Plan B, or a player from that team runs the show.
Foreign policy shift? - Either way, the odds of the hardline anti-U.S. rhetoric from Cuba dying down is almost a given. Our current administration will take a hard line stance with Cuba, hell we've even got them on the state sponsored terrorism list (for what appears to be only purely political reasons). It will still take a few years to get any matter of reform out of the country, or at least to democratic elections. If Raul holds onto power, certainly until he dies - then who knows?
EDIT: Maybe now it will become a truly classless society? :P
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Until Fidel dies, and the brawling begins, yeah. I think from a favorable U.S. foreign policy position, we'd prefer Lage, or Alarcón. Fidel is more than the dictator of Cuba, he's the physical embodiment of Fidel's Battle of Ideas. Even when Raul steps up to fill in his shoes, it won't be the same.
Personally, I think it'll be a good show. Maybe nothing as dramatic as assassination, but lots of scandal, or just out and out brawling. The only thing I can promise is that when Fidel kicks it, Miami is going to be the place to be for the party.