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The American invasion of Iraq now appears likely to facilitate a peaceful transition from a long tyranny to a stable and prosperous democracy. In Cuba.
The fact that the United States military is pinned down and being rapidly depleted in Iraq and Afghanistan may be the only way that our government's promises not to invade Cuba in the wake of the power vacuum left by Fidel Castro's indisposition will be believed.
Or be true.
The 79-year-old Maximum Leader of Cuba, who has thumbed his nose at every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower, has been knocked out of action by an intestinal ailment requiring surgery. The island's propaganda machine promises a swift and total recovery, but friend and foe alike are actively contemplating what a post-Fidel Cuba might look like.
President Bush says that it should look like whatever the Cuban people want it to look like. And, by that, he apparently means the people who live in Cuba, not the half-century's worth of exiles who so dominate politics in South Florida.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4153046 People wave national flags while attending a political rally in Havana August 8, 2006. People gathered on a square in Havana to express their support for Cuba's President Fidel Castro, his brother Raul and the principles of the 1959 revolution. REUTERS/Claudia Daut (CUBA)