On December 17, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced that they would establish normal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, for the first time since 1961. Normalizing relations with Cuba is no doubt the most radical step Obama has taken in a presidency largely marked by caution and incrementalism.
Long after normalization of relations with China and Vietnam, long after the end of the Cold War itself, the Cold War with Cuba has persisted. This is a direct result of Cuba’s proximity to the United States. Leaders and citizens of the United States considered Cuba virtually a state-in-waiting even before our Civil War, and its conquest in 1898 was the crown jewel of the Spanish American War. We allowed Cuban “independence” only with the perpetual lease of the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, and the expectation that Cuba would stay in the U.S. orbit. From the late 1930s until 1959, Cuba was ruled by a dictator, Fulgencio Batista, a puppet of the United States.
So the rise of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution was a direct challenge to U.S. dominance. Cuba became a bone stuck in the throat of the U.S. government, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
The long rift with Cuba has been reinforced by the presence of millions of refugees and their descendants, who were militantly anti-Castro and anti-communist. They put down roots (especially in South Florida), and they voted. The Cuban-American community, however, is no longer overwhelmingly right-wing and Republican. The majority of Cuban-Americans voted for President Obama in 2012.
Isolation from the United States served the interests of the revolutionary regime, especially after they secured their alliance with the Soviet Union in 1961. They were far freer under a Soviet umbrella to pursue their program of radical transformation of Cuban society. The Cuban health care system, in particular, has earned worldwide praise for delivering high quality care to all, at low cost.
When the Soviet umbrella folded in 1991, however, Cuba faced hard times. The Castro regime did not fold, but it did adapt: the economy was opened to foreign investment in tourism and mining, and the population was permitted to establish closely supervised private enterprises. A parallel dollar economy was permitted, even while government employees were still paid in pesos and rationed goods could be bought with pesos. The dictatorship of the Communist Party persisted, but there were episodes of liberalization punctuated by selective repression. Overall, though, Cuban society became somewhat less regimented, especially after the retirement of Fidel Castro and his replacement by his brother, Raúl, in 2008. Since 2000, Cuba has benefited from Venezuelan petroleum at subsidized prices, as arranged by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.
Since Jimmy Carter, Democratic presidents have sought to normalize relations with Cuba, but were always blocked by a combination of domestic opposition and Cuban authoritarianism. Now Obama has a Cuban counterpart who agrees that normalization is in the interests of both countries, he has as much support as opposition from the Cuban-American community, and he has much less need to conciliate a Republican opposition that seeks to block his every move.
Obama will still have to seek legislative approval for easing or abolishing the embargo, and any nominee for ambassador will need Senate confirmation. He is not entirely a free agent. Still, we have normal relations with Russia despite imposed sanctions on them. The same is true with Syria today, and was the case with South Africa under apartheid. Diplomatic relations do not presuppose complete agreement.
Obama should consider another benefit of normal relations with Cuba: the chance to fulfill his long-held vow to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. His authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is far more firmly established than that in any domestic policy area. He could order the closing of the detention facility, the transfer of detainees and the entire Guantánamo operation to ships at sea, and the evacuation of the base, which no longer has a naval function and serves only to detain people who were illegally tortured and thus cannot be prosecuted.