The Professor of Government at American University in Washington, William LeoGrande. File Photo.
Washington, June 16 (RHC)-- An effective policy towards Cuba requires a realist mindset that recognizes, once and for all, Washington's inability to impose its will on the island, U.S. academic William LeoGrande says.
Prensa Latina reported Wednesday of an analysis published by The Center for the National Interest in which the expert said that U.S. policymakers must abandon the illusion that sanctions will produce victory and dedicate themselves to the arduous task of engaging with a regime that they may not like, but that is not going to go away any time soon.
The Professor of Government at American University in Washington, DC, in his report, Will Joe Biden Continue America's Delusional Cuba Policy, said that President Joe Biden "should resist the seductive delusion embraced by so many of his predecessors that just a little more U.S. pressure will bend the Cubans.
Sixty years of history is evidence to the contrary, he said.
Since relations between the two countries deteriorated, the United States has been waiting for the fall of the Cuban government, he said, and several presidents have adopted ineffective measures in the hope 'that Cuba is on the verge of collapse and that tougher sanctions can push it over.
Despite repeated failures, Washington officials keep convincing themselves that the policy of pressure will work if we just keep at it, LeoGrande said.
He said the transition from Fidel to Raul went smoothly, forcing the invention of another reason for U.S. policy: Venezuela.
However, despite a fifty percent decline in oil shipments in the last decade, the Cuban government is still standing, he added.
The scholar noted that Barack Obama was the only president to say out loud what everyone else in the world has known for years: the policy of hostility is an emperor with no clothes.
In announcing his new engagement policy on December 17, 2014, Obama called the previous one 'an outdated approach that, for decades, failed to advance our interests.'
LeoGrande opined that if the past is any guide, the odds of Cuba collapsing are not good.
Regarding the internal debate in the Biden administration, to return to Obama's strategy or to maintain President Donald Trump's, the expert argued that there may be domestic political gains to be had by maintaining the status quo, but no one should pretend that this will produce anything positive as U.S. foreign policy.
