The Future of Cuba

I don't know why anyone was surprised that Cubans weren't dancing in the street when Fidel Castro relinquished power to his brother Raul. American foreign policy remains anchored on two hugely flawed assumptions: first, that people in places we don't like (Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, etc.) are hungering for democracy and poised for revolution, and second, that isolating and threatening these regimes will push their people ever closer toward a form of government we prefer. In fact there is plenty of evidence to the contrary; that confrontational policies toward nations like Cuba tend to increase anti-American sentiment and ultimately strengthen their leaders while more rational policies of engagement toward Communist nations like China and Vietnam have tended to produce, if not actual democracy, at least some of the necessary preconditions for democracy (like economic growth). If our government is serious about seeing a democratic Cuba in the future, the best thing it can do is drop our asinine, counter-productive policies toward that nation and attempt to engage Cuba in the same way we've successfully engaged Communist regimes across the Pacific.