The foreign-policy cynics among us certainly rejoiced this week over Cuban President Fidel Castro's resignation. At the isolated nation's helm for almost 50 years, Castro had done little to satisfy the needs of the people he claimed to represent in his January 1952 coup d'état, so the change in leadership was certainly long overdue. Perhaps the Cuban people would agree.
That the safety of AU students was the foremost concern to AU Abroad Director Sara Dumont is certainly refreshing. She, along with SPA Dean William LeoGrande and Acting Provost Ivy Broder, visited the University of Havana this past week to assess AU's Cuba program. No one can predict the political trajectory of a nation that hasn't had a leadership change in nearly five decades, so it was better for AU administrators to evaluate the situation in person rather than to rely solely on the media for information.
That said, we could not pass up this opportunity to criticize the United States' archaic Cuba policy. The infamous 1963 embargo reflects the United States' foreign-policy ineptitude as much as it does the Cold War's old power struggles, and for neither reason does the embargo seem practical in 2008.
True, Raúl Castro, the country's newest president, has long been a substitute for his sick brother. Expectedly, his political leanings differ only slightly from Fidel's. But at a crucial moment in Cuba's political history, whereby a government is no longer legitimized by one man's charismatic authority, it seems antithetical for the United States to continue to ignore Cuba because of an ancient ideological dispute.
But don't misconstrue those intentions: If the past seven years have taught us anything, it's that political change is an internal process inhibited by unwanted intrusion. It would be beyond irresponsible, therefore, for the United States to cajole Cuba using economic or military force. But dialog of every form is most certainly a welcomed solution to this ideological barrier - after all, it's why we have study abroad programs - so the next U.S. president would be remiss not to try to repair this broken relationship. The next year can be a turning point for the United States and Cuba, but only if we act on it while we can.
