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02/27/13 - Chicago Tribune - Americans fear Iran, but there is much to learn from Cuba

William Pfaff

Whatever the expectation, this fear of Iran in America is apparently now
greater than the level of American fear of the Soviet Union -- which
actually could have devastated the U.S. with a nuclear attack -- as
reported by Gallup during the most dangerous of the Cold War years.

Never mind that this is a totally irrational fear. According to the
combined conclusions of American intelligence agencies, plus the consensus
of international intelligence assessments, Iran does not have a nuclear
weapons program. It has a civilian program. The conversion of this
civilian program to military purposes would be a lengthy, internationally
visible process, and even then would at best furnish Iran only with a
retaliatory threat, a deterrent, useless for aggression.

Iran will be our next war, if American neo-conservatives, certain advisers
to the Obama administration and what would seem the all but total
membership of the U.S. Congress, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his new
government in Israel, have their way in the months to come. All acting
with the enthusiastic support -- or so it seems -- of the American public,
which one might think has had enough of war, after nearly 70 years of it
(including the Korean War), with little interruption, losing all of its
wars, and gaining nothing.

Take the quasi-war that has gone on against Cuba since 1959. Raul Castro
has just announced that he will retire at the end of the five-year
presidential term to which he has just been elected. His invalid brother,
Fidel, seems unlikely to survive Raul, and Raul has announced who should
succeed him if he does not complete his term. The liberalization and
partial democratization of Cuba begun under Raul is expected to continue,
whoever is president.

The great half-century struggle between the United States [pop. 314
million] and the Republic of Cuba [pop. 11.5 million], a struggle once
hysterically feared as likely to provoke a nuclear war that would blow
away both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(and Cuba along with them) is over, or soon will be over -- Cuba the
winner on points as a result of sitting there and taking the worst the
U.S. could do to it through decades of embargos and sanctions.

What was it all about, and what has it accomplished?

In 1952 a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, brought suit in Cuba to overthrow
the U.S.-supported dictator, Fulgencio Batista, for cause of corruption
and tyranny. The suit was disallowed and Castro arrested. He said,
"History will absolve me."

In 1955, Batista released political prisoners. The Jesuits who had
educated the Castro brothers prevailed on Batista to include them in the
release.

The two brothers sought military counsel from a veteran of the Spanish
Civil War, and in 1956, with friends, launched what would become a
successful armed rebellion. After Washington had withdrawn its ambassador
from Havana and imposed an economic embargo, Fidel Castro proclaimed a
liberated Cuban republic.


Original Source / Fuente Original:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-02-26/news/sns-201302261800--tms--wpfafftr--v-a20130226-20130226_1_raul-castro-iran-cuba