Diplomatic Relations with Rogue Nations

After decades of hostile relations and even military confrontations, the United States conducted secret negotiations to bring diplomatic recognition – using high-ranking intermediaries and secret meetings involving cabinet-level America officials – with a repressive Communist regime with a horrific human rights track record. Worse, irrational policies and horrific repression from the messianic dictator/leader of that nation led to the death and/or torture of millions of innocent citizens.

With no sign of that rogue-nation’s moving towards greater freedom, transparency or democracy, the President of the United States still believed that, since our decades-old policy of diplomatic and economic isolation of this Communist nation failed to produce any movement toward humanitarian goals, diplomatic rapprochement was an alternative that needed to be tried. Congressmen and women still railed against this rogue nation, decrying its deep repressive treatment of its own people, prisons filled with “dissidents” (those that survived torture and/or execution), and disruptive mass punishments meant to “re-educate” any vestiges of contrary thinking. Cuba?

Not really. The time was 1972. The President was a Republican – Richard M. Nixon – who defied his own party to open the door to Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China. Using Swiss intermediaries at first, secret negotiations in China were helmed by then-National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger. The process led up to a Presidential visit: “U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States (U.S.) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, which at that time considered the U.S. one of its foes, and the visit ended 25 years of separation between the two sides….

“Occurring from February 21 to 28, 1972, the visit allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades. Throughout the week the President and his most senior advisers engaged in substantive discussions with the PRC, including a meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong, while First Lady Pat Nixon toured schools, factories and hospitals in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou with the large American press corps in tow. Nixon dubbed the visit ‘the week that changed the world.’

“The repercussions of the Nixon visit were vast, and included a significant shift in the Cold War balance, pitting the PRC with the U.S. against the Soviet Union. ‘Nixon going to China’ has since become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician.” Wikipedia. The secret-end machinations with Henry Kissinger were part of the 1971 movement in the United Nations to remove the Republic of China (Taiwan) and replace it with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the U.N. Oh sure, the United States “objected,” (wink, wink), but Communist China’s place in the world was being slowly established.

In terms of deaths of tens of millions of innocent civilians which occurred during China’s Great Leap Forward efforts and the Cultural Revolution, the Castro brothers (Fidel and Raúl) are mere pikers. And instead of the 25 years that marked the lack of formal contact between China and the United States, our break of normal communications with Cuba lasted well over half a century. The Cuban intermediaries this time around were Canada… and Pope Frances.

Today, China and the United States are economically entwined, and while personal freedoms may have significant road still to go, freedom in the People’s Republic has never been less restrictive since the PRC founded in 1949. Chinese people today are more optimistic about their future than too many Americans are about theirs. Could it be that opening China to the world, initiated so many decades ago, actually contributed to this result? And since European nations and Canada are already setting up businesses in Cuba, forbidden to Americans, why are we shackling our business community from joining in the competitive universe that will inevitably change Cuba forever. Do we want American businesses to be left with “what’s left” years from now?

True, there are older Cuban exiles, living mostly in southern Florida, who have strong feelings against any form of recognition of a rogue nation run by geriatric patriarchs, but the passage of time has suggested that younger ethnic Cubans totally agree with President Obama’s nascent efforts towards diplomatic recognition of that tiny island nation. The “we’re normally affiliated with Republicans” U.S. Chamber of Commerce also seems to agree that the business opportunities must be allowed to Americans as soon as possible. The side benefit to our regional diplomatic efforts could also undermine the Venezuela/Bolivia anti-American cabal as Cuba turns towards the United States.

Given the past history of a Republican’s opening the door with a Communist dictatorship with vastly more blood on its hands than any Cuban leader – long before there was any economic interdependence between the U.S. and the PRC – would seem that all the “objections” to dealing with an oppressive regime in the hopes of improving the world we now see from Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and the litany of slogan-mongering partisan voices – come down to one harsh reality. Partisan, lock-step resistance to anything Obama (note so many of their castigations add the name “Clinton” hoping to damage that name as well). It is colossally stupid, contradicts the GOP’s best diplomatic efforts in the past, defies what’s best for American business and augurs horribly for the next two years of legislative conflict with the President.

We got a disproportionate number of American prisoners in exchange for the Cubans we released, we have not relinquished the totality of the sanctions that still hold effect, and we have an opportunity to overwhelm Cuba with the joys concomitant with economic growth… the best hope for future freedoms. Not all Republicans embraced the inane Rubio/J Bush mindless lockstep rejection of this latest Obama diplomatic move. Republican “Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said [December 18^th] that starting to trade with Cuba ‘is probably a good idea’ and that the lengthy economic embargo against the communist island ‘just hasn't worked.’” AOL.com, December 18^th.

But most of the GOP “nattering nabobs of negativism” – likely to the oppose apple pie should Obama embrace that dish – are resisting simply “because it came from Obama,” making up easily disprovable false slogans like “we got absolutely nothing, and Cuba got everything it wanted” in this latest diplomatic exchange. “We’ll block money to build an embassy; we won’t approve an ambassadorial appointment…” And perhaps they will hold their breath until they turn blue.

I’m Peter Dekom, and when will Americans stop electing slogan-mongering Congress men and women, from both sides of the aisle, without the slightest vestige of common sense?