Every U.S. President seeks to establish their legacy. Obama is no different than any President from either party. This in itself isn't a problem unless chasing a legacy hurts the U.S. position and hurts others. Sadly, I feel Obama has done this in normalizing relations with Cuba at a time that hurts those seeking freedom in Cuba, U.S. leverage with Cuba, and seems to only help Cuba. Here are the reasons:
- Cuba seems to always have a beneficiary country - Soviet Union, Russia and then Venezuela.
- Venezuela is teetering toward collapse so the oil & money they have been sending to Cuba is down to a drip or nothing.
- This is why Raul Castro decided to be more open with the U.S. just as Obama was seeking to cement his legacy while new generations of Americans and Cubans were open to this normalization.
- Obama missed an opportunity with a Castro brother stepping down in 2018 in his old age and Venezuela near collapse to leverage concessions by Cuba to open as far as political and economic freedoms for the common Cuban. Obama could not wait that long to cement his legacy and this ultimately may have hurt Cubans in the long run and any leverage the U.S. may have had.
- If anyone thinks China or Russia may have come to the rescue, it is unlikely Russia or China would have given much if anything as pouring more money into Cuba by Russia again or China giving loans to Cuba (as it mistakenly did with an oil filled Venezuela) would have been a safe risk to take by the U.S.
- Appeasement rarely works in foreign policy toward dictators and authoritarian regimes. We saw this with Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and today with Communist China or Islamic Revolutionary Iran.
- Now with the death of Castro, the Cuban government has no reason to make any movement toward more freedom other than what is politically expedient for those in power.
- Had we possibly waited a year to approach normalization or more, than we would have had a Cuba without it's ideological head (Fidel), it's economic life line (Venezuela), and a lame old duck leader (Raul). This is the leverage the US could have used to help the Cuban people immediately and long term.
