Senator Richard Lugar Calls for New Approach to Cuba
Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) has long been a voice of reason on foreign policy issues. And now via Steve Clemons, I see an important new report titled “CHANGING CUBA POLICY — IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL INTEREST” (PDF) that his staff has prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which he serves as ranking minority member. The opening:
Economic sanctions are a legitimate tool of U.S. foreign policy, and they have sometimes achieved their aims, as in the case of apartheid South Africa.
After 47 years, however, the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of “bringing democracy to the Cuban people,” while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba’s impoverished population.
The current U.S. policy has many passionate defenders, and their criticism of the Castro regime is justified. Nevertheless, we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests.
This is not much more than common sense, but in political terms it’s extremely bold. I can only hope that Senator Kerry and the Obama administration will show some boldness of their own and work toward implementing the sort of approach Lugar is talking about.
61 Responses to “Senator Richard Lugar Calls for New Approach to Cuba”
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February 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 am
God bless Dick Lugar, the lone sane Republican.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 am
Hear, hear! Senator Lugar is on target with his statement, but I have no doubt that this issue will continue to languish at the bottom of our national debate priorities.
I have no dog in this hunt other than a wish to see a senseless and unjust policy abandoned. It’s really remarkable to see how proudly the embargo proponents cling to such an abject failure. I think there’s a special corner of hell reserved for Fidel and his minions, and it would be sweet justice if he had to share it with the authors and supporters of this barbarity.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 am
What, abandon the policy after only half a century? That’s not giving it a fair chance. It’s on the verge of working at last! Fidel Castro’s power will be ended within another decade, probably sooner, if only we stay the course.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 am
Elvis Elvisberg,
To be fair, I’m pretty sure Lincoln Chaffee favored ending the embargo as well.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
What sort of policy is he advocating? don’t feel like reading the pdf.
in general I totally agree though.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 am
Fidel may be communist, but he is our communist!
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
Chaffee’s not a Republican. He’s from the Northeast. A national party no more.
I didn’t say that no Republican anywhere ever had been sane. That Lincoln guy was ok. And so was Everett Dirksen. But there are zero sane Republicans in Congress today.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
It shouldn’t be too shocking to hear of a non-Southern Republican adopting the views on Cuba supported by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Busisness Roundtable (arguably the single most influential think tank in the country), the lobby formed originally to push NAFTA through, and other similar organizations.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 am
BTW, the clipped headline was in the original. I’m assuming that last part would have said something like …”Unilateral Embargo Policy”.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:22 am
I can’t believe they didn’t nominate this guy for president in 1996. He’s so obviously superior to anyone else in the party.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:27 am
Re: Fidel may be communist, but he is our communist!
Actually, if we had been friendlier in the early 1960s we could probably have gotten Fidel to be an anti-Soviet communist, in the mold of Marshal Tito.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:45 am
When Castro first took power, he was a guy who leaned left, but he wasn’t yet a full-blown Marxist. What likely pushed him over the edge was the Bay of Pigs. In internal CIA documents debating whether or not to overthrow Allende that have since been de-classified, analysts warned against a coup attempt in that if there was an attempt and it failed, it would radicalize Allende and send him further into total Marxism, explicitly citing Castro as an example of this dynamic. A similar dynamic occurred with Ho Chi Minh and our financial support for the French in their war to keep imperial control of Indochina.
I find it interesting how the most anti-communist political players when it comes to Cuba tend to have no faith in capitalism’s creative destruction. There is a big difference between having Europeans go there on vacation and having their market opened to the largest economy in the world that is just 90 miles of their coast with a robust diaspora community. On one hand you have a system that can handle shocks (liberal capitalist democracy) and on the other hand you have a rigid system that has limited support from even the Communist Party’s own members. Of course trade between our two countries would strengthen the people of Cuba against the Castros.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Richard Lugar may be a *voice* of reason, but he consistently *votes* right along with the rest of his party. Talk is cheap.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am
Here’s a case where US foreign policy is captive to a relatively small group of people who don’t even really consider themselves Americans. Someone is going to have to stand up to all the Cubans in Miami, who are the political muscle behind the embargo, before anything is going to change. And this is not, collectively, a very rational group when it comes to this matter, and I’ve never seen anyone stand up to them when it comes to it. They want want the US to get them their country back and, therefore, you can expect no change vis a vis Cuba. Some whitebread in Indiana can talk until he’s blue in the face .
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Ho Chi Minh of course worked for the Comintern as early as the 1920s – but he wasn’t _really_ a communist, anymore than Lenin was.
Fidel was against American power and influence in Cuba: success required a powerful backer. The Soviet Union was the only possible source. Moreover, a caudillo with an ideology sells better and lasts longer.
Without sanctions, Cuba would get more American tourism: it’d still be poor of course, something like the Dominican Republic. It would be a market for American goods, but a small one.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
OT: I don’t know how long those ‘Related Posts’ have been appearing at the bottom of each post but it’s a cool feature.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Not to get all Hitchensian or even Huntingtonian, but let’s face it: our points of antagonism with any but the most murderous secularist regime are much lower than with any but the most accommodationist confessional regime. We are Cuba, and Cuba is us, far more than we’re like Saudi Arabia (a nominal ally!) or they’re like us. A real strategic reassessment might not entail ditching Saudi Arabia, but it should certainly entail ditching our archaic antagonism towards Cuba, a country that no longer represents anyone’s strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Rich in PA,
No, Cuba isn’t like us, and I think they would be horrified to hear you say so. The Cubans (and the Venezuelans, and Bolivians for that matter) don’t see the world as fundamentally divided between Islam and Christianity, or confessionalism and secularism. (Venezuela and Bolivia are at least in some respects, Christian nations). They see it as divided between socialism and capitalism.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Brent Scowcroft said long ago that Cuba was not a foreign policy question but rather a domestic political issue. I believe that Steve Clemons reported this first as well. There simply are no serious arguments to support the current policy.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Here’s a case where US foreign policy is captive to a relatively small group of people who don’t even really consider themselves Americans. [. . .].
I realize Cuban-Americans are the one ethnic group Democrats feel free to stereotype simplistically, but, among other things, it’s just not even true anymore that the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami favor the embargo.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Well, this is one area, where as I recall, Rush Limbaugh would agree with you. He hates the embargo as it limits his supply of Cuban cigars. I remember him saying as much in the mid-90s.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Meanwhile, the super-democratic government of Colombia is apparently using its security intelligence agency — the same one run from 2002 – 2005 by Uribe’s campaign manager who was then arrested for collaborating with the right wing death squad narco-paramilitaries — to spy on judges, liberal daily newspapers and the political opposition:
Meanwhile we need the Washington Post to get really outraged again at the oppressive environment in Venezuala and those who doubt the perfection which is Colombian democracy.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Rich in PA,
You might find this interesting: Human Rights Watch came out with its “Freedom Index” a couple of months ago.
Venezuela got a 4,4. You know who else got a 4,4? Georgia.
Iraq got a 6,6. So did Iran – a 6,6, exactly the same as Iraq.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
El Cid,
None of that matters, because even though trade unionists are being murdered in Colombia at an appalling rate, there are other groups of people being murdered at even worse rates.
Ergo, teh liberty!
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
This means that Lugar KNOWS something.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
First Lindsay Graham declares support for pinko nationalization of the banks. Now
Lugar wants to lift the Cuban embargo. What IS the world coming to?
Excuse me if I distrust the motives of these guys.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
“Actually, if we had been friendlier in the early 1960s we could probably have gotten Fidel to be an anti-Soviet communist, in the mold of Marshal Tito.”
You could say the same about Ho Chi Minh. Except that it would be the early 1950s.
One thing is for sure: Lugar isn’t running for president. You can’t win Florida with that attitude.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
First Lindsay Graham declares support for pinko nationalization of the banks.
I donated to the Democrat who ran against Lindsey Grahamnesty. I wish Bob Conley had won.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Words are easy. Helms Burton must be over ridden. Unless it is all the words won’t mean a thing. Helms Burton implicitly means that the US demands the return of all land to American Cubans who can claim title to it pre revolution. Not implicitly but by extrapolation they mean we could and perhaps should use military force to enforce those titles. Those titles are sitting in safe deposit boxes all over Miami.
Helms Burton also means many other things which make any American touching foot in Cuba a potential criminal. Subject to ignoring or selectively prosecuting the law.
Words are easy. Where is the legislation Dick?
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Hector- It doesn’t matter whom we or or Cuba happen to be in a strategic relationship with at the moment; obviously by that standard Cuba sees a mixed group of countries ranging from Iran to China as its allies, while we see a mixed group of countries ranging from Canada to Saudi Arabia as our allies. But at the end of the day, some countries see human events as fundamentally the doing of humans, and some countries don’t.
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
That last point is important. Congress must act to change US law regarding Cuba before any major policy changes can be made. Obama can do some things about this, but it will probably not be any time soon. We have a few other MAJOR crisis to tackle first before we get involved in changing Cuba policy. Though, I hope it is somewhere in the thought process at some point. Normalizing relations with Cuba isn’t the highest item on the agenda right now.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
The problem here is that the older generation of Cuban refugees in Florida are convinced that if only the Castro regime can be overthrown, they will get their property back. Just like the Palestinians living in refugee camps are convinced that if they can only hold out long enough they will be resettled in Israel. It ain’t going to happen as any attempt to regain their property in Cuba will be met with violence from those who now occupy it and will receive no support from anybody still on the island.
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
The US ought to try to negotiate some sort of a monetary compensation settlement for lost property of Cuban-Americans, and use that as a quid pro quo for full-scale free trade and economic and social exchanges with Cuba.
But yes, the embargo is silly. There is no point criminalizing Cuban travel or banning foodstuffs and medicines.
Nonetheless, problems like Bacardi’s Havana Club must be addressed (i.e., currently the U.S. does not recognize Cuban claims to the trademark as it was expropriated from the family without compensation. The Cuban gov’t must be forced to give up this claim, and many other similar trademark claims, in order for any economic business to be conducted between U.S. and Cuba without confusion. Otherwise, the U.S. will be rewarding Fidel Castro for confiscatory behaviour as he could easily sell it elsewhere in the world.)
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
One idea would for the Cuban regime (which is cash-strapped) to use its international (and potentially, American) aid as a sort of “clawback” to pay back the lost property of the Cuban expatriates.
Another would be to sell the private properties in question to international buyers and to remit the proceeds to the expatriates as appropriate.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Lugar was instrumental in helping Russia pull together their nuclear forces after the fall of the Soviet Union. He isn’t a neocon—the neocons still want enmity with Russia. I don’t think he sees communism as some inherent evil that can’t be dealt with. He’s pretty adult for a Republican.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Well, that’s a cold splash of water to the Cuban expats in Miami. Let them thank their children and the rise of non-Cuban hispanics (read: Democrats) in their state.
Let’s see how or if Jindal folds this bit of reality into his message.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Or, we could insist that the Cuban government return or pay for the property seized from people on the losing side of their revolution to exactly the same degree that the American government compensated loyalists whose property was seized during our revolution.
And repeal the embargo anyway.
Sounds like a plan.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Good point. We didn’t have these restrictions with regard to the likes of Poland, China or Russia IIRC.
True, but this doesn’t actually say much with regard to the situation in most postcolonial countries. The very white Afrikaaner union structures that led to the rise of the right-wing National Party in South Africa were partly created by the Comintern. Bose first tried to ally himself with Hitler and when that didn’t work out for him, he was flying up to Moscow to meet with Stalin to discuss an alliance when his plane crashed. Ho Chi Minh went to the US first before anyone else for help, but we rebuffed him because we thought our alliance with France was more important. He was rather explicit in saying that they were communists in name only as a way to get people’s nationalist backing. With the exception of the likes of Deng Xiaoping (who held some key posts throughout the years before the Cultural Revolution and led the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the 1950’s), Zhou Enlai, Che, etc., most politicians who came to power in the years or were fighting for independence didn’t really care about intellectual arguments of capitalism vs. communism. Most just cared about getting rid of occupiers or local foreign puppets and were willing to espouse the ideology of any outside major player willing to back them.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Or, we could insist that the Cuban government return or pay for the property seized from people on the losing side of their revolution to exactly the same degree that the American government compensated loyalists whose property was seized during our revolution.
Ancient lawlessness is hardly justification for the present one.
And anyways, it’s a bit of a myth that all the Loyalists got their property seized. Washington, for example, was perfectly content to let General Cornwallis retain his vast tracts.
And by the way, the Cuban Revolution has nowhere near the moral justifications of the American one. It is a anarchistic, communist takeover of a legitimate domestic political order, not an attempt at independence.
See Edmund Burke’s opposition to the French Revolution and support for the American for more on this line of reasoning.
Either way, it is morally indefensible to significant conceded to Castro unless he recognises the property rights of expatriate Cubans.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
This is not about revolution or whatever. It is about the sanctity of private property. No civilised order and no civilised international relation can exist without recognising the sanctity of property.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
And in any case, the Loyalists were largely compensated by the British Government, either through land grants in Canada, in the Caribbean, or by other means. The post-nominals U.E. (Unity of Empire) still remains to this day a heredity prerogative of the original Canadian Loyalists.
So, if the United States were willing to compensate the Cuban exiles out of its own pockets (for after all they did serve American interests) and not demand such concessions from Cuba, I would be equally fine with it. The main thing is that the expatriates must be compensated for their stolen property; whether America or Cuba does it matters not as much.
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
The main thing is that the expatriates must be compensated for their stolen property
Uh, yeah, that’s THE MAIN THING. We should totally condition the end of the embargo on that. Because the main thing is for the grandchildren of the people who had their property seized in a revolution to be rich again.
Certainly not our national security, our economic well-being, the promotion of cultural and economic exchange with Cuba, or the well-being of the Cubans themselves. No, THE MAIN THING, which comes before all other things, is to transfer wealth from Cuba to the exiles.
Or not.
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
And by the way, the Cuban Revolution has nowhere near the moral justifications of the American one. It is a anarchistic, communist takeover of a legitimate domestic political order, not an attempt at independence.
Um, no. The Cuban Revolution was the overthow of a massively corrupt, massively oppressive military dictatorship that had by and large sold the country to the American mob.
As I see it, ending the Cuban embargo is essentially a gamble. If communism works and the embargo is what’s holding back Cuba’s success – as the left is inclined to think – Cuba will prosper and remain communist. If communism doesn’t work – as most Americans and all American politicians think – then the Cuban government will no longer have a scapegoat and will fall.
There is no reason for any capitalist confident in capitalism to support the Cuban embargo; nor is there reason for any communist with confidence in communism to do so.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Katherine,
I basically agree with you, as long as American political subversion doesn’t undermine the Cuban political order along with American trade. But in general, yes, I would fall into your ‘leftist’ category above.
Myles, the Cuban exiles were a parasitic oligarchy who are entitled to absolutely nothing. Their ‘private property’ was built on the backs of ordinary Cubans, and they had rights to none of it. The Cuban government actually offered, at least initially, to compensate people who had had property seized and stayed around (in long term bonds). Anyone who left, however, was considered a traitor and dispossessed of all property. That’s not “expropriation”, that’s simple revolutionary justice. anyway, the point of the Cuban regime was to transcend capitalism, so what would be the point of letting them keep their money?
And no, I think that the Cuban revolution was generally much more justified than the American one- unlike the American revolution, it wasn’t made by a bunch of spoiled Virginia slaveholders complaining that their taxes were too high. There was absolutely nothing ‘legitimate’ about Batista, or for that matter any other capitalist oligarchy in Latin America.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 pm
This is not about revolution or whatever. It is about the sanctity of private property. No civilised order and no civilised international relation can exist without recognising the sanctity of property.
You know what, America is full of the dispossed and their descendents from plenty of countries all over the world. Cubans should be expected to pick up their lives and start all over again just like the rest of us our ancestors who made it here on refugee visas did. It’s not pleasant, but on the scale of “things which are important foreign policy issues,” the concerns of Cuban exiles who had their land appropriated 50 years ago during the revolution falls pretty low on the totem pole compared to the plight of those who are oppressed and suffering right now.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Fact of the matter is, Fidel Castro violated private property, and in the 21st century there must be no room for such uncivilised, barbaric behaviour.
Even China is gradually moving to recognise the sanctity of property.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I really don’t give two pins about how well the Cubans on the island themselves are doing. My main concern is opening up Cuba for tourism (it is a beautiful spot) and asserting the sanctity of property.
If Castro can do something like that, or at least offer a symbolic gesture (heck the U.S. is probably pretty willing to bail out the expats with its own money), we can do business with him, much like the West can do business with Communist China.
If not, then he ought be perpetually condemned.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:14 pm
(i.e., currently the U.S. does not recognize Cuban claims to the trademark as it was expropriated from the family without compensation. The Cuban gov’t must be forced to give up this claim
The Bayer corporation is unimpressed with the United States’ feelings on this trademark matter.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 pm
I really don’t give two pins about how well the Cubans on the island themselves are doing
Charming. Your mother must be proud.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:07 am
The thing that gets me is… we don’t seem to have any trouble trading, and even giving PNTR status to, other communist regimes. The human rights records of China or Vietnam are probably at worst marginally worse than that of Cuba. Maybe not even that. Maybe Cuba’s record is the same, or even marginally better. I don’t really know enough to say, but at any rate it’s not a huge difference.
As for seized property, I think the reds might not have been 100% respectful of private property when they took China or Vietnam either. Also, both produced refugee populations who ended up in the US.
So China and Vietnam — ruled by two oppressive, communist, property-seizing regimes, who drove some part of their populations into exile in the U.S. They get PNTR. Cuba, a similar oppressive regime — embargo.
Maybe the human rights record of Cuba is slightly worse than that of, say, the People’s Republic of China, but if so the degree is surely not vast enough to justify the vast gulf of policy difference in how the countries are treated.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 am
Err… I meant to say that the human rights record of Cuba is probably at worst marginally worse than those of China or Vietnam.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 am
Let me be among those to clarify that I completely don’t care about what ‘Myles’ thinks is important.
So, f*@% the exiles in determining U.S. foreign policy, and f*@% a bunch of libertarian sh*ts going to college on their parents’ dime talking about the ’sanctity’ of private property.
Thankfully, those expropriated are going to lose this fight, and they’re really not going to get squat out of anyone for losing their former slave sugar plantations and whatnot inherited from Spanish colonialism.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
El Cid,
Yeah, I agree with you. F$%^ the exiles and their ‘private property’.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Fact of the matter is, Fidel Castro violated private property, and in the 21st century there must be no room for such uncivilised, barbaric behaviour.
Sure, sure, but we’re talking about things that happened in the mid-20th century. Fifty years ago.
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