When President Obama announced that he was going to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba, there was plenty of skepticism. His plans were described as everything from naive, to idiotic, to downright anti-American by people who understood that the Castro brothers had no intentions of implementing substantive change.
As Marco Rubio said:
"This is going to do absolutely nothing to further human rights and democracy in Cuba. But it potentially goes a long way in providing the economic lift that the Castro regime needs to become permanent fixtures in Cuba for generations to come."
The argument was that, as long as the Castros were alive, they simply had no reason to allow increased Cuban freedom. Now, we know that those concerns were 100% correct. The dictatorship has no desire to alter the way it does business:
From Yahoo News:
The start of talks on repairing 50 years of broken relations appears to have left President Raul Castro's government focused on winning additional concessions without giving in to U.S. demands for greater freedoms, despite the seeming benefits that warmer ties could have for the country's struggling economy.
Following the highest-level open talks in three decades between the two nations, Cuban officials remained firm in rejecting significant reforms pushed by the United States as part of President Barack Obama's surprise move to re-establish ties and rebuild economic relations with the Communist-led country.
"One can't think that in order to improve and normalize relations with the U.S., Cuba has to give up the principles it believes in," Cuba's top diplomat for U.S. affairs, Josefina Vidal, told The Associated Press after the end of the talks. "Changes in Cuba aren't negotiable."
According to the Obama administration, you shouldn't judge the entire process on the basis of the first meeting and they're still hoping that things will turn around. That's a fair point, but what do they think will change? What on Earth would make them believe that the Castros will suddenly open their hearts and embrace a newfound love of human rights, capitalism, and democracy?
Consider these points:
A: The Castros have been thumbing their noses at the United States for decades - and they're doing just fine. Sure, their people are miserable but those in charge live cushy lives. Since they've shown that they don't care about the misery of those they rule, changing course brings them nothing but headaches.
B: They're perfectly content to be among the planet's worst human rights abusers. Again: why would they embrace a "deal" that would probably bring inspectors to their Island, allow their serfs to speak out against them, and legitimize challenges to their iron-fisted rule?
C: Perhaps most importantly, they don't need to offer concessions to Obama, since he's already shown his hand. By announcing his intentions, President Obama has already squandered considerable political capital on his Cuban plans. As such, a permanent rebuke would be embarrassing. The Castros are no doubt aware of Obama's blatant ego issues and they've watched Obama handle other regimes with kid gloves, so they surely understand that they've got him over a barrel.
To be blunt, the Castro brothers know that - concessions or not - they're most likely going to get what they want. Even if they offer nothing, Obama will probably still give them normalized status and the administration will claim that they've promised to do X, Y, and Z. The alternative is yet another - highly visible - foreign policy failure.
If we've learned one thing about Barack Obama, it's that he's all about doing whatever benefits Barack Obama. No matter how little he gets in return, he'll make sure relations with Cuba are normalized. Even if it's simply a "legacy" play, that's where Barack Obama's upside lies.
