Obama's Cuba Problem

Obama's Cuba Problem
BY JOSÉ R. CÁRDENAS SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 - 12:06 PM

The last time President Obama met with his Latin American and Caribbean
counterparts was not a particularly memorable affair. The 2012 Summit
of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, was overshadowed by an
embarrassing Secret Service scandal that saw members of his advance team
soaking in a little bit too much of the historical city's Caribbean
nightlife.
Meanwhile, in the absence of any substantive agenda, President Obama
spent most of the summit being hectored by his counterparts with the
incongruous assertion that undemocratic outlier Cuba must be part of the
next meeting of all the popularly elected governments in the Americas.
It was clear the president wasn't pleased with the
badgering, complaining that, "Sometimes I feel as if in some of these
discussions ... we're caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and
gunboat diplomacy."
Fast forward two years: Preparations for the 2015 Summit are well
underway and once again Cuba's participation has become the flashpoint.
Governments in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua
have already said they will boycott any summit where Cuba is excluded.
Panama, the host, has announced its intention to formally invite Cuba,
with its president saying that the presence of the last military
dictatorship in the region was "important."
The State Department has already voiced its opposition, citing the 2001
Summit's agreed-upon "democracy clause," which conditions Summit
participation to countries that respect democracy and rule of law.
According to a spokesperson, "So we should not undermine commitments
previously made, but should instead encourage -- and this is certainly
our effort -- the democratic changes necessary for Cuba to meet the
basic qualifications."
Secretary of State John Kerry privately repeated that message in no
uncertain terms to Panamanian Vice President Isabel de Saint Malo when
the two met at the beginning of September.
Nevertheless, the drumbeat has started that President Obama must accept
the Castro regime's presence at the Summit or else, as one former
advisor to President Clinton has said, be "responsible for the collapse
of inter-American summitry, 20 years after its initiation by President
Clinton."
There is no doubt that U.S.-Cuba policy critics see the president's
dilemma as a golden opportunity to mainstream Cuba back into regional
polite society despite its uncompromising, repressive rule, thus making
it more difficult to justify the U.S. policy of isolating the Castro
regime politically and economically. The administration will therefore
be coming under enormous pressure to accept the "inevitable" and attend
the Summit with Cuba.
These critics understand the power that symbolism plays in international
affairs. The presence of a U.S. President at any event -- international
or otherwise -- is never routine, or ever lacking of import and
consequence. Thus, in their construction, President Obama's attendance
at a Summit with Cuba will signal a U.S. surrender of fifty years of its
embargo-centric policy. On the other hand, the symbolic importance of
standing up for the region's hard-won democratic gains over the past
quarter-century by making a point about the incongruity of Cuba's
presence in this age of regional democracy will be a dagger in their heart.
It's worth noting that several of the governments insisting on Cuba's
presence are those guilty of their own back-sliding on respect for
democratic institutions over the last several years, including
Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Why wouldn't they want the Castro
regime present in regional fora, so as to lower the bar for everyone on
adhering to democratic principles?
But this isn't just to argue that President Obama should just stiff his
counterparts and appoint a lesser State Department official to attend in
his stead if other Latin American governments insist on Cuba's
presence. The president should seize the opportunity to be proactive
and make a statement that what distinguishes the Americas is that it is
a community of democracies and that commitments to democratic governance
are enduring and meaningful to ensure it will always be that way. He
should challenge others to argue why the Castros' military dictatorship
is deserving of any special consideration or compromise for their
flaunting of democratic norms over the past five decades.
If, in the end, the president opts not to attend the Summit due to the
Castro regime's presence, meaning that the U.S. "isolates" itself from
the Summit process, then so be it. Principle is more important that
popularity. The sun will rise the next day and the struggle for
democracy in Cuba will continue. And if Latin American governments
choose to condition their relationships with Washington on U.S.
relations with Cuba, that is their choice to make -- and to live with.

Source: Obama's Cuba Problem -
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/09/12/obamas_cuba_problem