The Havana Note is a DC-based blog whose contributors include Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former aide to Colin Powell. They favor “engagement with Cuba” and, I assume, ending the embargo. They can be quite Cuba-friendly.
But they do think there’s co-dependent behavior going on, what with the “continued dysfunction of Washington’s dependence on the Embargo as a source of electoral votes” at witnessed by Sen. Joe Lieberman wanting an Omega 7 terrorist freed from US prison. Counterbalanced with that is Raul Castro as much as admitting the embargo isn’t isolating them but then using it as a pretext to justify more military spending and beef up security.
I argue that the embargo is more useful to Havana than to the Washington. Havana, unaffected by the sanctions, uses the blockade as an excuse to maintain a outsize military and to ramp up nationalism. It is an essential crutch for a Revolution that cannot find a modern, progressive pathway.
Hmmm. Substitute “Neoliberalism” for “Revolution” and they could be talking about the United States.