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01/07/13 - Albany Tribune - Kerry's Cuba Sanity - OpEd

Kerry's Cuba Sanity - OpEd

Written by [1]FPIF

January 6, 2013

By Arturo Lopez-Levy

One would have to go back to John Quincy Adams, who served in the U.S.
diplomatic service from the age of 17, to find a predecessor better
pedigreed than John Kerry to lead the U.S. State Department. The son of a
diplomat, Kerry is a war veteran, senior senator, and the chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Few experiences have had greater influence on Kerry's foreign policy views
than his decades-long relationship with Vietnam, where Kerry served as a
swift boat captain during the Vietnam War.

Kerry's experience in Vietnam, where visceral ideological attitudes
prevailed over rational analysis, prompted the future senator to advocate
for a more realistic course for U.S. policy. A decorated veteran, John
Kerry became a spokesman for veterans against the war. He learned that to
promote U.S. values and interests requires awareness of the relative
nature of power and the force of nationalism in the post-colonial world.

Throughout his subsequent political career, Kerry has sought to correct
the foreign policy mistakes that led to the fiasco in Indochina, learning
to value diplomacy and engagement above force. Together with Senator
[2]John McCain (R-AZ), another veteran of the war, Kerry supported
President Clinton's steps to end the U.S. embargo against Vietnam. The
result, according to Kerry, has been a "Vietnam that is less isolated,
more market oriented, and, yes, freer-though it has miles to go."

Admittedly, Kerry has not always applied these lessons properly-witness
his [3]regrettable support for the Bush administration's disastrous
invasion of Iraq. But elsewhere, as in his efforts to ease the archaic
U.S. blockade on Cuba, Kerry continues to promote engagement as the
fundamental tool of foreign policy.

In a [4]2009 Tampa Bay Times op-ed, for example, Kerry relates how the
success of the U.S. rapprochement with Vietnam helped shape his advocacy
for improved relations with Cuba, which he presented as a defense of U.S.
interests and democratic values. "For 47 years," he wrote, "our embargo in
the name of democracy has produced no democracy at all. Too often, our
rhetoric and policies have actually furnished the Castro regime with an
all-purpose excuse to draw attention away from its many shortcomings."

This evidence has informed the future secretary of state's position
against the ban on travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens. Based on the
experience of tourists from other countries and the return of
Cuban-Americans who "have already had a significant impact on increasing
the flow of information and hard currency to ordinary Cubans," Kerry
understands that unrestricted U.S. travel to Cuba would be "a catalyst for
change."

The senator also placed a temporary freeze in 2010 on the [5]poorly
designed USAID Cuba programs, which have led to the imprisonment of Alan
Gross, an agency subcontractor.

Kerry, who has visited Vietnam post-reconciliation, knows that a [6]USAID
program there helped to multiply Internet connectivity rates in the
country. The USAID program in Vietnam is jointly implemented with the
Japanese development agency and with the support of the local government,
unlike the [7]Helms-Burton law, which geared USAID programs in Cuba toward
regime change and was repudiated in the UN for its unilateralism. The
USAID program in Vietnam encourages development, which is what USAID was
created for, not efforts to overthrow Hanoi's government. The premise is
that a population more affluent, better educated, and more connected will
demand more democratic practices.

According to Kerry, the United States will never stop supporting human
rights in Cuba, simply because they are fundamental values of American
society. After all, the United States has continued pushing for civil and
political liberties in Vietnam since ending its embargo. Washington does
so not because it opposes Hanoi's leaders or to impose a regime change,
but as part of a rational strategy of promoting a peaceful evolution to a
more open Vietnamese political system. Washington wants stable
relationships with the whole Vietnamese nation, not only with the
government. Peoples of the world, no matter how suspicious of U.S. motives
they may be, appreciate human rights promotion within the framework of
international law.

The nomination of John Kerry is also consistent with the political changes
that have occurred in the Cuban-American community, expressed by the
elevated [8]Cuban diaspora vote for Democrats in the last election. Like
Kerry, and as then-Senate candidate Obama stated in 2004, most
Cuban-Americans believe that the embargo has failed and that it is time to
influence the processes of economic reform and political liberalization
that began in Cuba after the retirement of Fidel Castro.

Once public opinion turned against the war in Vietnam, the political
leadership in the U.S. found it had no choice but to follow suit. Kerry is
better positioned than anyone to be a leader and see that point of
departure when it comes to U.S. policy and Cuba.

Arturo Lopez-Levy is a PhD Candidate at the Josef Korbel School of
International Studies of the University of Denver. You can follow him on
Twitter [9]@turylevy.

References

Visible links
1. Posts by FPIF
        http://www.albanytribune.com/author/fpif/
2. http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mccain_john
3. http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_case_against_kerry
4. http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/open-cuba-to-us-travelers/1057098
5. http://cubamoneyproject.org/?p=1961#more-1961
6. http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/02/levy.french.cuba.us/index.html
7. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-12-15/news/bs-ed-alan-gross-20101215_1_cuban-government-cuban-spies-cuban-authorities
8. http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_latin_american_gorilla
9. http://www.fpif.org/articles/http;/www.twitter.com/turylevy


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