Biden and Cuban Unrest

Biden isn't being aggressive enough toward Cuba, or so it is being argued. Even though it's likely the US is playing a part in the current unrest, there are calls for a more direct intervention. The Right is portraying Biden as weak, indecisive and perhaps guilty of moral and ideological equivocation.

And yet if a Republican were president, especially one such as Trump any such calls would be harshly rejected. Such criticisms would be decried as 'armchair quarterbacking' and the like. We would be reminded that leaders are privy to information that we aren't and we should trust them. I remember being told this by one Evangelical during the WMD propaganda campaign in 2002. He was attempting to shut down my criticism of Bush's march to war.

Biden for his part has more or less indicated his approach. While he hasn't denied US behind-the-scenes involvement, he doesn't want the uprising to be completely identified with the US. He doesn't want it to lead to a US intervention. In fact he wants the 'victory' to be (or at least appear to be) established on a grass roots basis – for it is only on that basis that Cuba can ever 'turn the page' as it were. If it is perceived that the US has merely installed a proxy, then there will always be questions of legitimacy and there will be a resistance – and one that will receive outside help. Cuba could end up becoming another Haiti. And in that case, the narrative regarding the 1959 Revolution will never die. Biden wants the Castro legacy to collapse on its own merits. Given the long history of US intervention, sabotage, terrorism, and assassination attempts, this would be something of a fiction but at least it has the appearance of plausibility.

Biden has openly condemned communism and socialism – a point that's obvious enough if you understand anything about Biden and what he represents. And yet how confused many must have been to hear him say so. I know of so many who foolishly and wrongly believe that he is some kind of communist. Biden is a wicked man, corrupt, deceitful and so forth but a communist? No way. There's no evidence of that and those that think so are employing tortured redefinitions of the term and are drinking too deep from the propaganda wells of the Right's activist wing.

But Biden also must beware. His domestic enemies may use this as an occasion to stir up trouble and attempt to force his hand – something that happened to Kennedy sixty years ago in the spring of 1961.

American policymakers certainly want to see things change in Cuba but they do not want to radicalise the island or have it become the theatre of a civil war. Such events would most certainly bleed over into Florida and the larger US political equation. I'm sure US intelligence agencies are not idle and the military is on standby. However, despite the calls from Rubio and others on the Right, no one thinking clearly on the issue wants to unleash forces that may destabilise the larger region for the next generation and lead to something worse than the Castro regime.

I would hope church leaders in Cuba would realize this as well.