Writing in yesterday's New Republic, Joshua Kurlantzick strikes a wintry note on the prospects for evolution in U.S. policy towards Cuba.

Kurlantzick weighs the prospects for a change in U.S. policy towards Cuba given December's historic clue from Fidel himself that he does not want to stand in the way of the next generation of Cuban leaders (see Steve Clemons' comments on that statement here).

Bottom line for Kurlantzick, however, is that the electoral college will continue to trump national security for most, but not all, presidential candidates:

Though Barack Obama supports changing the relationship with Cuba, Hillary Clinton, who previously said she wanted to continue the economic embargo, has said that she will continue Bush's tough policies. Rudy Giuliani, John Edwards, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and John McCain have all indicated they would continue the current policy. And as Steve Clemons notes, Mike Huckabee, who backed greater engagement with Cuba when he was governor of Arkansas, now says he wants to put more pressure on Havana than the Bush administration did.

I was particularly pleased to see that the article also picks up on the under-reported GAO findings that enforcing the Cuba embargo is distracting Customs and Border Patrol agents from counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics missions in Miami:

As a recent report by the Government Accountability Office revealed, U.S. government agencies have been distracted from essential tasks like combating terrorism by having to spend time trying to find Americans who are illegally traveling to Cuba. As The New York Times reported, according to the GAO, the focus on Cuba has "strained Customs and Border Protection's capacity to carry out its primary mission of keeping terrorists, criminals, and inadmissible aliens from entering the country at Miami International Airport."

These GAO findings are not trivial. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (chapter 7, note 114), five of the nineteen hijackers entered the United States through the Miami International Airport. Continuing to distract the officials charged with securing our borders from external threats with the arguably unconstitutional policy of restricting the travel of U.S. citizens, is absurd and irresponsible.

Luis Posada Carriles

Being a political blogger during an election of the sort we are having today is a weird experience. There is no heir apparent in either party and there is a true scramble by all parties to win any way he or she can. And thus, the campaigns are reaching out to folks like me constantly with this angle or that. Usually, they want to give us their pre-packaged angles rather than the information we actually request.

But writing about the candidates during this time is like being a Hollywood actor during the voting period for the Academy Awards. I know a number of "stars" and one simply wouldn't believe the marketing gimmickry that film distributors use when sending out "screeners" to pump up support for their Oscar-hungry films. Political bloggers get a similar kind of deluge -- usually phone calls and opportunities here and there for "special moments" with candidates or their key advisors.

And it's a rush. In fact, it's more than just that -- it's a gusher of stuff. So much that it's hard to stay focused on other issues.

One of these is the fact that America is coddling wanted terrorists in the United States -- perhaps the most outrageous of which is Luis Posada Carriles who is walking around freely in Miami. Posada's case serves as as an example of the seeming arbitrariness of America's system of rule of law to Cuban nationals who witness this outrage and may appropriately wonder if our system of democracy is one more of rhetoric and veneer than substance.

There are others, like Center for Democracy in the Americas Director Sarah Stephens and National Security Archives Latin America expert Peter Kornbluh, who have written powerfully on the Posada case -- and I recommend a look at their thoughts.

Cuban nationals actually get a double whammy as they are subjected to a daily feed from their government on the abuse of justice in the US with regard to the so-called "Cuban Five" -- who clearly have received judgments against them that are unbelievably disproportionate to anything they might have done. Former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson gets into this here.

Now today, Salon has a definitive article by Tristram Korten and Kirk Nielsen on the coddled terrorists in Miami -- and here is a short bit by a local TV station in Miami reporting on some Code Pink organizers being chased and nearly attacked by Posada supporters.

Knowing any of the political candidates and what they might or might not do cannot come from asking them about the comfortable issues of the day -- it comes from seeing them under stress and when challenged to confront issues such as this Posada case.

Will John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama admit that our justice system in Florida that protects these thugs like Posada is broken?

Or will they hug the guy in a photo op in order to curry favor with the elder, anti-Castro fanatics -- who perhaps unknowingly have helped reinforce the status quo in Cuba and have helped distort and corrupt America's democracy.

-- Steve Clemons

Havana Note's own Phil Peters wrote the following post in his blog, The Cuban Triangle:

Before Brazilian President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva visited Cuba, my impression was that he was going to make a quick visit to see Fidel Castro, perhaps as a sort of farewell.

He certainly did that, but his focus was on the future: on the development of Cuba’s economy and a role for Brazil’s government and private sector, and on Brazilian engagement as a counterweight to U.S. pressure at a time when Cuba’s leadership moves toward generational change.

It was a superpower move. Coupled with Mexico’s improving relations with Cuba and others’ rapprochements with Cuba, Lula has capped Latin America’s rejection of the Bush approach to Cuba.

And he did so quietly. There was no rhetoric, least of all Bolivarian rhetoric. No fanfare, no choreography or backdrops, no grand name to his initiative. Lula signaled political support just by being there for 24 hours, and he left a $1 billion line of credit on the table.

The U.S. effort to deny hard currency to the Cuban government by blocking visits and small monetary assistance between Cuban Americans and their loved ones back home, has never appeared so ineffectual, or so small of mind and heart.

A Reuters report said: “Brasilia has the economic resources, technology and diplomatic clout to help Cuba as it approaches a crucial moment of its history without Fidel at the helm and under pressure from the United States to open up to multiparty democracy, a Brazilian foreign ministry official said…‘We want to see Cuba back in the fold and can provide the Cubans with a level of comfort in the transition ahead by not being confrontational like the United States,’ he said.”

A different foreign policy angle is discussed by David Adams in the St. Petersburg Times – that Brazil is also countering Venezuelan influence.

Lots of details of the economic package remain to be worked out. It seems that the two sides reached a framework agreement, setting objectives and defining projects and sectors where the $1 billion line of credit may be used. Talk of oil exploration attracts lots of attention, and Brazil has resources and deep-water expertise. But Petrobras is only now acquiring seismological data on the formations below Cuba’s Gulf waters, so action in this area is not imminent. And ethanol development, a potential boon to a Cuban sugar industry that was downsized just a few years ago when sugar prices had tanked, was left for another day.

As for the Castro visit, Lula found Fidel in a state of “incredible lucidity and impeccable health.” (The next day, Fidel wrote that he does not “enjoy the necessary physical capacity” to address the Santiago constituency where he is running for a National Assembly seat in Sunday’s election.) See Encuentro’s roundup, with pictures and video, here.

“I think Fidel is ready to assume a political role in Cuba and the political role that he has in the history of a globalized world,” Lula said before his departure.

“A political role in Cuba” – that sounds a little different than “a return to office.” We’ll see.

More here.

Let’s look at what Cuba is doing with regard to diversification. It’s darned smart.

Having experienced the Soviet withdrawal from their island—a move that impacted nearly every Cuban in some way—and the concomitant epiphany of the tragic downside of sole-source support, the Cuban leadership vowed never to repeat. As a result, today that leadership is diversifying its support by state and function. Spain, China, Germany Canada, Israel, Venezuela, Brazil, and others fill the former role and nickel, tobacco, oil, rum, tourism, and other trade the latter. Cuba will never be trapped again into reliance on one state or on one or two commodities or trade functions.

The latest move in this regard was executed by the man about whom Ricardo Alarcón, President of Cuba’s National Assembly, said in 2007: “Give me ten Lula’s and I will rule the world.” I tend to agree with Alarcón, particularly when I cast Brazil’s wise leader against our own feckless leader, George W. Bush. In fact, Bush calls to mind most poignantly Shakespeare’s words, as uttered by the Fool in King Lear: “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.” How very apt.

Lula has just quietly visited Cuba and left a one billion dollar line of credit in his wake. Moreover, Brazil is working to assist Cuba in exploring its offshore oil potential, along with China and Venezuela (another smart form of diversification by Cuba).

The missing "state" in all of this is, of course, the United States. Its embargo looks like something from the dark ages; its policies don’t even have the rationale of “impassioned brotherhood” of a 1962 Bobby Kennedy intent on offsetting his brother’s Bay of Pigs image by eliminating Castro. In fact, there is no longer any reason for the embargo except the hardline Cuban-American lobby whose members increasingly act more like Batista clones than freedom fighters.

Moreover, as the U.S. embargo continues, our relations with all of Latin America suffer. Lately, as Brazil and Mexico in particular have recently highlighted, the U.S. is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the entire region. And as this kind of U.S. negligence usually generates in the relations of nations, other powers—such as China—are making hay while the U.S. sun refuses to shine. In short, their power is flowing into the vacuum we have purposefully and even spitefully created.

This has to cease.

Whoever is the new president in January 2009, two things need to happen with regard to Latin America and Cuba. First, Cuba, never on the front burner, needs at least to be put on the stove. Second, U.S. relations with Latin America should be completely refurbished. And there is the connection: no more effective and swifter way exists to signal a new approach to Latin America than to effect a rapprochement with Cuba as the opening gambit.

Mr./Madam President, over to you.

--Lawrence Wilkerson