Calvin Coolidge may be one of America’s least known historical figures but, until this week, he held the distinction of being the last sitting United States President to visit Cuba.
In 88 years, no U.S. President had visited Cuba, a country that had been under some sort of American control from 1898 to 1959 when the Castro regime took over. That absence ended on Tuesday when Air Force One landed in Havana to set up what may prove to be the final step in liberating the island nation just 85 miles from Florida.
Most Americans believe that Cuba has always been at odds with the United States, but in fact our government has played a major role in Cuba’s development since before its eventual “independence” from Spain in 1898.
As far back as Thomas Jefferson’s presidency in 1805, Americans had argued for annexing Cuba as a strategic move to stabilize the Americas. Jefferson even sent secret agents to Cuba to negotiate a deal with sympathetic Spanish Governor Marques de Someruelos.
It still took several failed rebellions throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and U.S. involvement in what became the Spanish-American War to finally liberate Cuba from Spanish rule in 1898.
But Cuba’s liberation from Spain was just the first step on the road to true independence. Cuba was handed over to the US by Spain and that set up over 60 years of American-led governance and support of failed Cuban leaders. Economic and political stability was sporadic and the unrest eventually led to the revolutionary coup led by Fidel Castro in 1959.
Castro’s Communist regime quickly turned against the U.S. and relations froze. We all know the history from there: the embargo, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile crisis that almost started World War III.
We can all agree that Fidel Castro and, now his brother, Raul, have turned Cuba into a country frozen in time but the US has played into their hands. The embargo that was launched in 1962 has only fueled the poverty and suffering of the Cuban people. Castro’s government lost its main economic partner in the 1990s when the USSR collapsed. Hell bent on survival, the Castro regime has held on for nearly 60 years in the face of economic collapse and political isolation.
Eisenhower. Kennedy. Nixon. Ford. Carter. Reagan. Bush. Clinton. Bush. And now Obama. Ten US Presidents have come and gone and still the Castro brothers survive. It is safe to say now that the trade embargo and ignoring Cuba have not worked.
Most Cuban exiles and relatives that live in the U.S. still oppose American interaction with the Communist regime in Cuba but doing nothing is not the solution. The people of Cuba have not been able to change their government for three generations. And Americans do not have the stomach for a war to impose regime change after what we’ve seen in Iraq, Libya, and Syria in recent years.
So President Obama has bet on diplomacy as the means to empower change. His visit this week was historic not only because he went to Cuba, but in forcing President Raul Castro to face the media in a way neither Castro brother ever has before. It was both odd and amazing to watch the dictator called president of Cuba answer real questions from real reporters for the first time since the 1959 coup.
America cannot stomp around the world invoking the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy by any means necessary, even by force. In Cuba, that has specifically not worked for over 115 years.
Instead, President Obama is using public empowerment to encourage change from within. The Cuban people have always looked toward the US as the model for economic prosperity and freedom. It has been the Cuban regime that has not allowed those principles to prosper for fear of losing their grip on power.
Throughout the world we have seen the spread of democracy in recent years spurred by citizens protesting and overthrowing their repressive governments. Only when military power is used to suppress those movement have they failed, as we have seen in the four year civil war still raging in Syria. Had it not been for Russia’s intervention, that country’s strong man would most likely have already been in exile, ironically, probably in Havana.
Opponents, especially and not surprisingly the candidates for the Republican nomination, have blasted President Obama for visiting Cuba. Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Cuban descendants themselves, have criticized Obama for being too quick to embrace the Communist regime.
But what is the better tactic to use there? Another 60 years of a non-effective trade embargo and more suffering of Cubans? Starting a war to overthrow the Castro brothers? Military occupation like Iraq?
Cuba’s 200 year march toward freedom may soon be over. The eyes of the world have turned to the island state at a time when Fidel Castro is near death and his brother looks like a crazy old man holding on to the last bastions of power. The time for change is now and the Cuban people must become the force for change to free themselves.
Calvin Coolidge may have been the last President to visit Cuba before this week, but Obama may prove to be the last President to visit Cuba under Communist control.
Here’s a toast of rum to a truly free Cuba, when all the citizens of the world may soon be able to cry out “Cuba Libre” as a truth, and not just a dream.