Last hours of a monster

20 January 2007

Amid fresh reports that Fidel Castro is at death’s door, Daniel Hannan says that the Cuban dictator was the beneficiary of Western hypocrisy about left-wing tyrants, and of the strategic errors of the 44-year US blockade

In a sense, though, it doesn’t much matter what Raúl thinks. He won’t be around for long. Few autocracies outlive their strongman. Sometimes the regime staggers on for a while under a nominated relative, while generals and ministers manoeuvre in the background, but they always collapse in the end. This was true even of our own brief flirtation with military dictatorship. Oliver Cromwell was notionally succeeded by his son Richard. But the truth, as a historian put it, was that Old Ironsides ‘ruled England from the urn for eight months’.

Something similar will happen in Cuba. The ruling caste will huddle around Raúl for a while, as senior Communists seek to guarantee that their privileges are retained after the transition. Like their counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe, they will doubtless sell themselves party property at knock-down prices, so as to emerge as the first millionaires of their newly capitalist country. But Cuba cannot escape its geography or its history. Sooner or later, the Holiday Inns and Pizza Huts will arrive.

How quickly this happens depends on whether Washington has the gumption to lift its embargo. Many US foreign policy strategists privately concede that the blockade has been a cock-up. But, as long as Florida remains a swing state, neither party wants to offend the Cuban exiles clustered there by seeming to go soft on Castro.

The old brute’s demise may finally give George Bush his moment. This President has more credibility with Hispanic voters than any previous Republican leader. He doesn’t need to worry about his anti-communist credentials. Come to think of it, he doesn’t need to worry about the voters at all. Here, in short, is a splendid opportunity to round off his presidency with an unequivocal foreign policy success. Never mind what they say in Little Havana, George: history will absolve you.