The timing of Jon Lee Anderson’s article in last week’s New Yorker was uncanny. The focus of Anderson’s piece is the Castro regime’s succession strategy, a campaign it calls the Battle of Ideas (hint: it’s a battle against ideas). It will be interesting to see if the repression can be maintained without the Old Man. I support full democratic freedoms in Cuba but I oppose the conservative agenda of the Miami exiles.
Anderson reports as well on the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, co-chaired by Florida Senator Mel Martinez and, of all people, Colin Powell. The Bush administration also has a “Cuban transition coordinator” in Caleb McCarry, whom Anderson knowingly describes as “the Paul Bremer designate of Cuba.” Cubans need not allow Raul Castro to shove more authoritarianism down their throats. But neither should the island be sold off to Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
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