POLITICS-US: Cuba Policy Remains in Far-Right Hands

By Charles Davis | IPS News

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (IPS) - Concerned over the rise of "realist" influence over the final year of the Bush administration's foreign policy might extend to Cuba, right-wing hawks are mobilising against any possibility that Washington might ease its hard-line stance, or its 46-year-old trade embargo against the Caribbean nation.

"Now, of all times, we must do nothing that will slow momentum toward genuine political change," declared Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs under President George W. Bush, at a conference devoted to Cuba policy hosted by the influential neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) here this week.

"There will be plenty of time to help the Cuban people rebuild their economy on firm foundations," Noriega said, "but moving in prematurely to provide a modicum of material benefits to some Cubans may allow what's left of the Castro brothers' regime to bide a few more tragic days in power."

The conference, which was held on the eve of President Fidel Castro's announcement that he is too ill to return to public life and take part in Cuba's upcoming parliamentary elections, came amid growing evidence that the administration's realists, led by Pentagon chief Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have made major gains in asserting control over policy toward other U.S. nemeses, particularly North Korea, Syria, and even Iran.

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