Regime change or not?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Since the President’s Cuba announcement last December, observers have been trying to fathom whether the intent is only to change the strategy of our policy, while retaining the long standing goal of “regime change,” or whether it is truly to abandon that goal. In other words, was the efficacy of the past strategy in question, or its fundamental legitimacy?

To answer, one must begin with the President’s statement that U.S. policy of more than 50 years “has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people”…and that…“Cuba is still governed by the Castros and the Communist Party….” Implicit in this language is that the problem isn’t solved, so “regime change” still must be the goal.

The President went on to address a new strategy of “people to people engagement,” because “nobody represents America’s values better than the American people, and I believe this contact will ultimately do more to empower the Cuba people.” While avoiding the phrase “regime change,” this language also suggests that the U.S. will “empower” the Cuban people to bring about “regime change” on their own. But “empower” them how?

The President also called for a full lifting of the embargo by Congress, and removed Cuba from the “terrorist list,” but he only authorized investments in the private sector and in telecommunications, without facilitating other trade avenues with the island’s government that are within his executive authority. It is hard to escape the conclusion that this is a bet that the private sector and the internet will somehow become agents for “regime change” on the island.

And the story doesn’t end there. The President has continued to support tens of millions of dollars for programs justified by the U.S. as “democracy promoting” for Cuba, but considered “subversive” by the Cuban authorities and many of its people, a reaction that is not so irrational. After all, how would the American people react if Canada were to actively and financially support U.S. dissidents to bring about “regime change” in the U.S.?

If you are a small country that has experienced five decades of a coercive “regime change” policy from the most powerful country in the world, the combination of the President’s words and actions suggest that, at best, this is a change to a “regime change” lite policy.

But the President will be gone in 2016, so it is worth asking whether the Senators who so far support the new policy share the continuing “regime change” goal of the Administration, albeit through “soft power”. Or would they be content with having a distasteful but stable political regime, a Caribbean Vietnam, so to speak, in exchange for regaining influence in the hemisphere and opening up a modest new market – two stated objectives of the new policy?

What follows, therefore, is a quick review of what the primary Senate actors who support the new policy have said about the new policy. The House is not considered, as there is no chance that it will take any action in support of the President’s new policy in the foreseeable future.

As a start, we can look at some representative comments by the three elected officials selected by the White House to bring back Alan Gross.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy’s language has been among the harshest in tone, emphasizing that the travel and trade embargo “has provided the Castro government with an excuse to blame the United States for Cuba’s repressive policies and the daily hardships Cubans suffer under a broken economic system,” that “Cuba’s government is very repressive,” and that he actually agrees with the goals espoused by the critics of the President’s changes, but that “the disagreement is over how best to achieve” those goals.

A second member of the group, Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, has similarly commented that the past policy “was a total failure in its own terms,” but he has couched his comments in more neutral terms towards Cuba, such as asserting that “greater dialogue with the Cuban people will over time improve conditions in Cuba,” rather than using stronger double-speak for “regime change.”

Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, the only Republican in the group, has mostly emphasized the freedom to travel. “To me it’s just an issue of freedom. We ought to be able to, as Americans, travel wherever we want…and for a long time there hasn’t been a [security] reason to prevent us from travelling [to Cuba].”

Another Democratic Senator, Richard Durbin from Illinois, a key sponsor of several current anti-embargo Senate bills, speaks very similarly to Leahy’s harsher language. Upon the announcement of the opening of embassies he asserted that “our foreign policy…has failed to end the Castro dictatorship. The power of new ideas and the force of an open economy and an open society will succeed.” In a radio interview he asserted that “Communism still is dominant on that island of Cuba. It is time for a new policy,” which he believes will bring about changes such as in Eastern Europe.

Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, a Republican who also sponsors a bill to eliminate important trade aspects of the embargo, links commerce with the “regime change” goal. “By lifting the embargo and opening up the market for U.S. agricultural commodities,” he asserted in a statement, “we will not only boost the U.S. economy, but also help bring about reforms in the repressive Cuban government.” Coming from a senator with a substantial interest in his state’s agricultural trade with Cuba, however, the linkage sounds more like political cover than a strong ideological argument for “regime change.” After all, it is hard to argue that selling soya to Cuba will change their political system.

Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Arizona, one of the principal co-sponsors of the “Cuba Data Act” to eliminate the existing prohibitions to telecom investment on the island, has also been relatively neutral in tone regarding the issue of “regime change.” Following the embassy announcement, he wrote that “Re-establishing formal relations and further opening Cuba to American tourism, trade and commerce is a better way to bring freedom and openness to Cuba than the failed policies of the past.”

Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, a co-sponsor of Udall’s “Cuba Data Act,” and who is among a modest group of Republicans in the Senate who support other anti-embargo proposals, highlights that “the embargo has not worked,” and “that the U.S. can be of greater help to the people of Cuba by allowing the trade of products and ideas rather than trying to force a change in government through unilateral isolation.” He has also asserted that “one of the best ways that the U.S. can support change in Cuba is by encouraging better and more open communications, and improvements in [telecom] infrastructure will do that.”

Finally, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has introduced a bill to facilitate exports to Cuba, is an exception to the above patterns. In her public statements, she has steered clear of “regime change” suggestions, emphasizing instead that “we can boost American exports to Cuba and produce the goods for 11 million new customers, while also helping to improve the quality of life for Cubans,”….and ”to help build a practical and positive relationship between the people of Cuba and the United States.”

In summary, the President and most of his most vocal supporters in the Senate avoid the phrase “regime change,” but strongly imply that the concept should remain as the key U.S. policy goal. The differences are only slight, and mostly in tone. Senator Leahy was perhaps the most candid, when he asserted that he agreed with all the arguments by the critics, but that “the disagreement is over how best to achieve” those objectives. And there is no question that those critics strongly favor “regime change” as the principal goal of U.S. policy.

Lastly, the geopolitical gains the new policy may bring in terms of improved hemispheric relations and influence for the U.S. were notably absent from most of the statements by these supporting senators. Yet, ironically, that is one of the issues that elicits important emphasis from Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee in his opening statement to a recent hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs. Although he also spoke indirectly in favor of “regime change,” he equally or even more strongly emphasized that the new policy “has been welcomed in Latin America and the Caribbean,” and that it should be seen in its context of “our relationship with the Americas more broadly.”

Does this suggest that there may yet be Kissingerian realpolitik surprises among Republican senators with regard to Cuba policy?