(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aWVzmT1ASNUA)
Lady writer is an intelligent person. Pity she missed the target.
1. Gorby made the basic deicsion on the DDR when he overruled Ulbricht and refused to let force be used by the Soviets or the East Germans to restore the wall / restore order. He countermanded the DDR's orders to their own troops and police.
2. No foreign power controls the Cuban forces of order. And after seeing what happened in Rumania in 89 or Moscow 91, those are precisely the people who will worry about their future [and indeed their lives]. If Raoul gives the order to fire enough will obey and few to none will turn their weapons on their masters.
3. In 89 there were only two models apparant. To reject Moscow's was to accept the West's. Putin and Deng now offer a third way of state capitalism under a post-communist garrison state. Forget that Cuba doesn't have Russia's oil. The key to Putin's state is a sham democracy as a veneer on the KGB state he has constructed. The Dengist model is more open economically [China can export finished goods and actually imports minerals; Putin is the reverse]. Dengism more fits Cuba but that will be a matter decided by Roaul and the top hundred of the apparat.
4. Miami complicates things. To say the USG has little control over Little Havana is an understatement. The wisest move for all sides would be a controlled mass migration. Shrink the island's population by 40/50%. I do not expect such wisdom. Miami Cubans vote GOP. Florida Haitians vote Dem and will scream me too at yet another round of Cuban favoritism. Navigating the shoals between another Mariel and a companion flood from Haiti will be a political and media conundrum probably beyond the US political class in full election frenzy. Now add in that W knows he is leaving office and has little love for his brother's sucessor as governor of Florida...
5. I can write up grand bargains galore. A trade on increased but controlled immigration, release of political prisoners into US exile, end of the embargo, end of Radio/TV Marti, an enterprise zone near Havana [like Deng's first ones] and a bit more aid to Haiti plus some green cards as a buy-off. However this is all policy wonk land. We are going to live on high flown rhetoric until it blows up and then do mad improvization. Pity.Labels: Cuba is not the DDR
posted by scott 7:33 AM