Category: International

When the subject is Cuba, and you live in Florida and you care what happens next, there is no middle ground. Zero-sum mentalities prevail.

Still a dictatorship? Then keep the embargo.

A Cold War-relic policy that demonstrably hasn’t worked and is counterproductive–from economics to geopolitics–in so many ways? How unconscionably dumb.

People lost their country to a dictatorship. Lives, property and homeland roots confiscated. Imagine walking in those hauntingly emotional shoes? We get it.

But imagine turning more than a half century of bitter memories and feuding into foreign policy? A vendetta agenda can’t be the basis for diplomatic, humanitarian, trade, security, immigration and environmental policies. Who would get that?

There’s plenty of blame to go around–regardless of who started it. Or who used to be a Batistiano. Or who planned the invasion of a certain bay. Or who allowed doomsday-scenario nukes. Or who consorted with the mob over assassination hits. Or who orchestrated a massive, deceitful boatlift. Or who still believes in heavy-handed, undemocratic government with a weirdly hybrid, hypocritical economy.

We know that the U.S. has allies and trade partners far less democratic than Cuba: Think Saudi Arabia and Vietnam, for openers. The former is ground zero for radical Wahhabism, has subsidized terrorism and has uncomfortable ties to 9/11. The latter, of course, is where more than 50,000 Americans died and where societal fault lines were forged throughout the country.

But we moved on. It wasn’t personal enough–just tragic and horrific.

We also know that no state benefits more than Florida from Cuban-American detente. And we know that no city–think Port Tampa Bay, for openers–benefits more from normalized relations than Tampa, the historical soul mate of Havana.

But Cuba is also its own worst enemy. The U.S. may be Uncle Scapegoat, but the Cuban government also weaves its own basket case. When you find yourself on the same self-inflicted, economic-dysfunction short list with Venezuela and North Korea, you’ve got a big problem.

For all the high-profile rapprochement with the U.S. and attendant interest–the reality is still dueling currencies, slow growth, bureaucratic hell, import overdependence, dissent intolerance, inadequate agricultural production, Internet deficiencies, credit card roulette and selective marketplace dynamics that reward Hotel Nacional bartenders more than brain surgeons. Egalitarian poverty is no less poor. The populace no less hungry.

When President Barack Obama visited last month, the Cuban government seemingly didn’t care that the world watched while the “Ladies in White” demonstrators were roughed up. It didn’t dawn on them that President Raul Castro would look like a “Saturday Night Live” parody for his debut press-conference performance. You care enough to put on a show to bring international exposure and encourage tourism and investment, and then allow Banana Republic images?

And then there’s this. As of this writing, Cuba still has a law prohibiting Cuban-born nationals from returning by sea. But it’s okay for them to fly in. Huh?

Obviously, Carnival Corp., which has cruise-liner plans to bring passengers–including some Cuban-born Americans–to the island, has been less than pleased by this inexplicable incongruity. It’s not about to be a flagship for sovereign discrimination. Obviously, Cuba still doesn’t have its act together, and some things you can’t blame on Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart and Marco Rubio.

One final point. We have friends in Cuba who are periodically in touch. One mentioned a likely Cuba-America scenario about 15 years ago. He said that ultimately it would take the “biological solution” to normalize everything meaningful between the countries, including the end of the embargo, which needs Congressional approval. That literal solution would be the deaths of the Castro brothers. Too much had happened for that not to be the final tipping point.

I didn’t disagree then–or now–even if the next generation of Cuban leaders, including 84-year-old Raúl Castro’s heir apparent, First Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel, is not exactly cut from democratic, capitalistic cloth.

But absent a dictatorial Castro presence, final, face-saving agreements can be reached by the exile generation as well as pandering–and intimidated–politicians.

Next month President Barack Obama will be in Japan for the Group of Seven summit. It will be in Ise-Shima, half way between Tokyo and Hiroshima. There is already speculation that he will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. It would be seen as a grand symbolic gesture that would also underscore his dream of a world without nuclear weapons.

The president should make the visit. It’s what some American president should already have done. America is the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon. One killed 140,000 non-combatants in Hiroshima. We know the necessary-evil rationale to save the lives of U.S. troops.

That’s not the point the rest of the world, much of it still looking at the U.S. for hope and context, focuses on. However nuanced the president’s “never-again” words: they need to be said–especially in that part of the world.

* By now we’re familiar with seeing President Barack Obama drop in on “The View” or a popular podcast or a late-night, comedian-hosted talk show. But in Cuba? Much was made in Havana about the president appearing on Cuba’s most popular comedy show, “Deja Que Yo Te Cuente” (“Let Me Tell You”) that features the high-profile comedian Luis Silva in the character of “Epifanio Pánfilo.” Actually, the president appeared twice.

Before his visit, the president was seen–from his White House desk–in a “Direct From the White House” appearance commenting about his upcoming visit to Cuba. While in Havana, he then dropped in for a game-of-dominoes skit with Pánfilo and two friends. Neither was a cameo, and the president worked in more than serviceable Spanish during the exchanges.

Obama, who is notably good at this kind of stuff, did it for the same reason he appears on certain American TV shows: To reach a demographic that traditional political outlets don’t. And, in this case, to be seen as an avatar of openness and accessibility–the antithesis of the Cuban government’s MO.

“The natural and easy way Obama has chosen to mingle with Cubans contrasts stridently with the distant and hardbound historical leaders and their claque,” pointed out prominent Cuban blogger Miriam Celaya. “It is known that autocrats not only remain isolated in a world that is unattainable for the ordinary Cuban, but that they also don’t know how to smile.”

In short, the juxtaposition of Obama and Raul Castro, couldn’t have been more revealing and starkly confirming.

* Fidel Castro, 89, was nowhere to be seen during President Obama’s visit. Just as well. He is now an historical artifact, an icon largely in the abstract. But he did comment after the fact for public consumption, if not 2016 relevance. “We don’t need the Empire to give us anything,” sniffed Castro, in a commentary in Granma, the government newspaper.

* Gov. Rick Scott’s recent presidential cheap-shot hit a new, repellent low. “Following the gruesome terrorist attacks in Brussels earlier this week, President Obama chose to continue gallivanting across the communist country with the Castros,” stated Scott. “Now, he is dancing the tango in Argentina.”

As Scott and the usual partisan partisans well know, Obama travels with all the technological and staffing help necessary to conduct Oval Office business anywhere in the world. He called his Belgian counterpart. He checked it with NATO and other European allies. He condemned the attacks and offered assistance and solace to Belgium before his formal speech in Havana. His secretary of state was with him.

And he assured the new president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, that he would keep his appointed meeting–and show the American flag in an important Latin American country that values our friendship.

Because networks utilized a split screen to show Brussels carnage while Obama spent three innings at a baseball game, Scott and the usual suspects jumped at the opportune optics. As if the president’s priorities were profanely skewed. As if the rest of us didn’t know that by furthering the momentum between the U.S. and Cuba, the president would be upgrading America’s geopolitical reputation in its own hemisphere, helping the Cuban people and making the case for tearing down the embargo wall–which will help no state more than Florida.

How ironic. How clueless. How insufferable. How Scott.

Plus this: The con-jobs governor even had the cojones to ask the president to leave Cuba and fly to–not Washington or Brussels–but Florida to assuage tourists’ fears about traveling to Europe. Put another way: To ease Europeans’ fears about round-trip visits to Florida. Hijo de puta.

* Amid all the VIPs who were part of the historic presidential visit to Cuba, none were classier than Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson. Still elegant and eloquent, as was evident in an ESPN interview. She has had, to be sure, her share of racial crucibles, but the years have been kind in other ways to the 93-year-old former assistant professor at the Yale School of Nursing and Director of Nursing at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

The incident was horrific, its timing instructive.

The terrorist attacks in Brussels came hours before President Barack Obama’s live address to the Cuban people. He prefaced his televised speech at the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater with references to Brussels. “The world must unite against terrorism,” he said emphatically.

It was a reminder of the world we now inhabit, and what the existential threat is. Cuba, for all of its fractious history, dysfunctional economy and undemocratic ways, is a neighbor, not an enemy.

It has 11 million people not named Fidel or Raúl Castro who deserve a better life. Its back story is fraught with hostility, tragedy, unfired nukes and posturing politics. For more than half a century the U.S. played Uncle Scapegoat with the embargo and the perpetual Guantánamo naval base lease.

I watched President Obama’s rousing, “It’s time to leave the past behind” speech. He opened with the ultimate extension of friendship–“Cultivo una rosa blanca“–that is taken from the “Versos Sencillos” by the iconic “ Apóstol ” Jose Marti.

His live audience was clearly moved. He was there, he underscored, to “bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.”

It was pitch perfect. His Spanish pronunciations, which he weaved in throughout, were excellent. I was glad this was not Obama’s predecessor–or successor. The first African-American president literally embodies change–and challenge.

The president noted the two countries’ shared history of conflict and collaboration. He didn’t lecture, but well-documented, fundamental differences–in “governments, economies and societies” were hardly ignored. The legitimacy of dissent was highlighted.

On balance, the president’s presentation was a paean to pragmatic and mutually-beneficial change for “two estranged brothers,” as he talked past Castro–sitting nearby–to the Cuban people. The ones on the island and the ones in exile.

“I believe in the Cuban people,” he said in summary.

A few takeaways from coverage of the presidential visit/Tampa Bay Rays-exhibition double header.

* Whether you like or loathe his politics and presidential performance, Barack Obama is who central casting would send–whether you needed a Correspondents Dinner stand-up, a Charleston-funeral orator or a history-making statesman. He’s good at this stuff.

* How ironic. Obama is more popular in Havana than in Washington.

* Raúl, not so much. He’s a Castro, but he still doesn’t look the part. He could use some serious PR help. Too bad the U.S., which sends government bureaucrats, elected officials, business execs, artists, educators, a Major League Baseball team and POTUS to Cuba, couldn’t also include, say, some Hill & Knowlton reps to offer non-ideological help to Castro.

For example, if you want to accelerate normalization, help a willing American president make his anti-embargo case to Congress and improve chances of renegotiating Guantánamo, you probably don’t invite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for a pre-Obama visit. Or let security make an unseemly scene with “Ladies in White” demonstrators while the president is in town. Or not prepare your leader for a press conference, where he’s agreed to take, if not answer, questions.

* Castro and Obama, polar opposites in so many literal and figurative ways and needing a translator for small talk, did seem to get along. But no exchange of fist bumps.

* In its Rays-Cuban National Team coverage, ESPN clearly couldn’t get enough air time for All-Star pitcher Chris Archer, who didn’t actually pitch. But make no mistake, he is the face–and articulate voice–of the Rays. Next up: outfielder Kevin Kiermaier, the hustling, entertaining, Golden Glove outfielder. As for Evan Longoria: good, solid and highest paid.

* MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred could not have been more complimentary about the Rays and how the players and organization embraced the experience. They were one of seven teams to apply for the Cuban exhibition and were selected by lottery. “We won the lottery with the Rays,” said Manfred. “They were great ambassadors for the game.”

* Too bad Joe Maddon wasn’t part of this. His love of vintage cars and maybe some geopolitical sound bites would have made for an added vibe–and great copy.

* The Rays were good for the Tampa Bay region. They made us proud, but they also reminded everyone who matters that an important part of Tampa’s soul is Havana. And Tampa has the airport, seaport, Cuban-American population, proximity and motivation to take advantage of it.

* In addition to the Rays, Tampa Bay was represented by Congresswoman Kathy Castor, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. Unfortunately, the mayor who matters most was cutting a ribbon for Warehouse Lofts in Seminole Heights while the Rays were defeating the Cuban National Team, 4-1. We know the reason, but your city–with its special history and a fortuitous opportunity–comes first.

When it comes to the encryption battle between the Justice Department and Apple, there are three obvious priorities: national security, privacy and the China market. Not necessarily in that order.

“Through deregulation, we can invigorate entrepreneurship and innovation.” No, this was not uttered by a presidential candidate. Nor by an American. Nor by a free-market Westerner. No, this was said by Lou Jiwei, the finance minister of China at the recent Group of 20 economic summit. Somewhere Chairman Mao is still spinning. Class-warfare revolutions don’t typically yield an entrepreneurial class.

The international nuclear deal with Iran–and the implications of sanctions-removal–are an inevitable part of our domestic political process. But not unlike rapprochement with Cuba, it has led to more than partisan controversy; it’s also prompted increased interest in travel to both places. As in get there while it still has forbidden cachet.

Around here, we’re familiar with the opening to Cuba, which will soon include commercial flights. Although it’s not open to normal “tourist” travel, the motivated are well aware of the work-arounds.

As to Iran, we’re now reading about tour operators organizing departures, even if the U.S. State Department officially discourages it. Americans still need visas, which can be a months-long process, and must be accompanied by a guide. Credit cards are problematic and dress codes require a decidedly conservative approach. But it’s certainly doable.

Having said that, here’s one traveler’s quick Iranian take from a few years back.

Iran is not a “stan.” There was no sense of sectarian paranoia or Third-World despair. With the exception of some dyspeptic clerics in Qom, the seat of religious training, the people were uniformly open, gracious and pleasantly taken aback by Americans in their midst. A friendly “salaam,” a courteous smile and an extended hand were reciprocated.

Ornate mosques, prayer calls and Islamic-garbed women are a given. And so are hotels, office buildings, billboards, restaurants, bazaars, gardens and historical sites–from Tehran and Isfahan to Shiraz and Persepolis–all familiar with accommodating visitors, mainly Europeans.

The Islamic Republic of Iran (Persia until1935) is obviously a Muslim country–but not an Arabic one. The people are Persian, and they speak Farsi. They are fiercely proud of those distinctions.

It’s a young, ancient country: Approximately two thirds of its nearly 80 million people are under age 25. Its literacy rate tops 90 percent. More than half of its 4.5 million university students are female–and they comprise 70 percent of the country’s science and engineering majors. And they like moderate reformist President Hassan Rouhani more than theocratic Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A helluva lot more.

Space limits preclude a lot of detail. Here are a few observations indicative of an experience not detectable through the usual lenses.

The Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Tehran was surreal in a way. Upon approach, there was an abrupt morphing of all the women passengers into a sea of cloaked, scarfed specters. Whether Westernized Iranians returning from overseas or non-Islamic Republic visitors, they were all gearing up to cover up. Since 1983, public “veiling” has been mandatory. And there are no summer-color loopholes. Goth rules.

Then there’s the Customs Declaration for Arriving Passengers. “In The Name of God” is emblazoned at the top of the form to remind all that the Deity is also the Ultimate Bureaucrat. You’re then asked to declare that not only are you not bringing guns, ammunition, drugs, alcoholic beverages and glossies of the late Shah (just kidding) into Iran, but you’re also not toting video devices, books, magazines and the like that are “in violation of public order and decency and national and religious values of the country.”

Party on.

Then it was on to our official tour guide. His briefing said unspoken volumes.

“You must remember that there is no alcohol available here,” he said. “It is forbidden. Not in the hotel. Not in restaurants. … But if you can find it somewhere… . What you do in your room is your business.”

There was a message there–and a well-worn Iranian joke is illustrative.

An archetypal, fundamentalist sort is asked how the Islamic Revolution has impacted his life. He answers, “Very little,” and then explains. “Before the Revolution, I got drunk in public and prayed in private. Now I pray in public and get drunk at home.”

The worst-kept secret in Iran is that–not unlike other societies, even those without a fairly recent revolution–there are double standards and privilege. Whether monarchs or mullahs, you’re told off the record, an epicenter of patronage certainly remains alive and well-heeled. Where there’s corruption, you’re also told, at least it’s homegrown–not imposed colonially from without.

The gated mansions of North Tehran still stand–like unapologetic paeans to Western excess. Foreign videos, stylish ensembles, chic coiffures and very open bars remain the cloistered rage behind certain closed doors.

Other contrasts include Iran’s well-wrapped women, otherwise renowned for their beauty. Although their femininity is shrouded in public, their shopping habits aren’t. These shapeless, danse macabre figures seem on a mission from glitz as they cruise-control it through the aisles of high-profile gold and diamond stores in downtowns.

We should be able to work with these people.

* Remember when “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” had resonance? How Cold War era. But if it still resonated, we’d be pragmatic buds with China and Russia, both existential targets of ISIS-inspired jihadists.

* You go, Pope Francis. You have to give it up for a leader uniquely positioned to speak truth to world leaders as well as his own Catholic Church officials. Most recent example: Mexico. He cut to the theological chase when he upbraided church leaders for their deference to Mexico’s wealthy and powerful. Standing ovations were rare.

The Pope also cautioned President Enrique Pena Nieto that public officials cannot be seduced by privilege and corruption. And throughout his travels he continuously urged Mexicans to confront their unacceptable, new normal: a drug culture, gangland killings, human trafficking, kidnapping and crooked police.

In short, it’s what Mexi-stan needed to hear. Not from border-defending yanquis–but from the first Latin American pontiff.

* Few would argue that North Korea–for obvious reasons–is a threat and its 30-something leader alarmingly ominous in his nuclear-envelope pushing. Even fewer, it would seem, would defend the response of the Chinese. They live with an existential threat next door. They also supply North Korea with most of its energy and food. They have incredible leverage. Use it.

The subplots just keep on coming for those who continue to leverage anti-Castro, pro Cuban- exile politics. Exhibit A: Marco Rubio’s pandering position on the president’s break with Cold War-era policy with the island-nation. It’s the context for Rubio blocking a floor vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Mexico.

For obvious reasons–from major-trade partnership to cooperation on illegal-drug interdictions to El Chapo extradition–this is important. And by all accounts–including a favorable vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee–the nominee, Roberta Jacobson, is qualified and acceptable.

Not good enough, however, for Rubio. He has blocked a formal floor vote. He doesn’t show up for work that often, but when he does, he makes his self-serving presence known.

His reason for vote-blocking: Jacobson helped to negotiate the president’s opening to Cuba. His pragmatic rationale: This could help him with right-wing primary voters, even though it is not in the best interest of his country to let this vacancy linger any longer. It’s already been six months.

But what’s best for the U.S.–especially while Obama remains president–is not a priority for this disingenuous hijo de la gran puta.

Say this about President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president. He has certainly broken the brutal tyrant mold. Imagine, a geek-ophthalmologist-dictator.