Raúl Castro can live with that. He knows that when the hoopla over this week’s big policy move is over, when Obama has finished collecting kudos from foreign policy mavens who have been clamoring for a more “rational” U.S. Cuba policy, Obama and most of the rest of official Washington will move on to other things.
Meanwhile, Castro and his fellow military officers will remain in firm control of the political and economic levers of power in Cuba, including the little things — jobs, visas, building permits, export and import licenses, court cases — that really determine whether and how Cubans and Americans get to interact and how much freedom seeps in to the deeply traumatized society.
Castro can look forward to dealing with second-tier U.S. diplomats, torn between their belief in democracy and the bureaucratic imperative to keep their bosses’ “engagement” project on track. When needed, a new Cuba lobby in Washington will help explain why it would be counterproductive to press Havana for immediate reform.
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