Centerfield

A revolution in Cuba is very unlikely. While the island is definitely not wealthy, the economy is improving with tourism really picking up, and the government has continued to provide for basic services including health care and education. If Raul Castro opens things up a bit, it's likely that the island will continue to be among the most stable and economically viable countries in the Caribbean, which has few successful countries.

Bush won't touch the Cuba policy right now for fear of alienating the Cuban crowd in South Florida months before the election. And it's likely both candidates will sidestep the issue through November. Next year is the earliest we could even hear talk of a major change in policy.

The whole policy, from the attempted assassination attempts and the policy towards Cuba itself has been a tragedy of incompetence and ideology. We actually had a chance to make Cuba a Yugoslavia a la Tito's weird non-alignment in the 50's but business and corporate interests made that impossible. (Castro's Cuba called itself non-aligned but that was pure BS).Our hard line anti-communist policy had the effect of making Cuba more "communist". Go way back to 1952 and Batista's coup against Agramonte that was US supported because we didn't like even the hint of socialism and that of course led to Castro and his getting linked up with the KGB and becoming eventual leader of the Cuban revolution.

In hindsight, the choice of having a mildly euro style socialist state in Cuba vs. the Castro regime and it's highly disruptive influence around the world, especially in Africa, is no brainer. Unfortunately we had no brains at the time because ideology and political maneuvering blinded us to the other possibilities. (Iran is the other 50's era CIA screw up that has bitten us in the butt, with a much bigger bite.) Hopefully, as Castro fades from the scene and all the old-Batista backers die off and become less of a political factor in the Florida electoral count, we can normalize relations with Cuba and maybe pick up where it was left off more than 50 years ago. Then Rush can legally support Castro every time he buys a box of cigars.