The Strategy Behind Castro's Charm Offensive

Fidel Castro is behaving as if a friendly space alien has taken over his body. He's making amicable gestures toward the U. S. He pays for imports with cash. He condemns terrorism. He accepts that Taliban and the Al Qaeda prisoners are to be kept at Guantanamo. He says he's ready to discuss shared immigration problems with Washington and he offers his cooperation on drug-trafficking issues.

The same guy who, just a few weeks before Sept. 11, toured radical Islamic countries boasting, as he did at the University of Tehran, that "Iran and Cuba could bring the United States to its knees," has adopted a new posture. Suddenly, this old, unrelenting enemy seems docile and obliging.

Three factors are driving the attitude adjustment. First, the health of El Comandante has deteriorated quickly. There is speculation that he will not live more than a year, two years at most. Second, the ailing economy is in crisis. And third, Castro and the governing elite reckon that the only way to keep the dictatorship alive, without making amendments that would endanger the authority of Fidel's successors, is to begin economic reconciliation with Washington while the old man lives. Ergo, a strategy designed to win sympathy in the U.S. so that Mr. Bush will be pressured into changing U.S. policy toward Cuba.

It is a brilliant ploy. Keep in mind that Cuba appears on the State Department's list of "terrorist" countries. If the conservative Bush administration in the middle of its war against the "axis of evil" begins to find common ground with Havana, it will help Castro in several ways. Cubans will get the message that the U.S. has no material objection to the dictatorship. Castro's heirs will understand that good relations with the U.S. do not require a transition toward freedom.

This will be devastating not only to dissidents and political prisoners who will see their hopes for freedom dashed, but also for the reformers inside the government who for now must hold their tongues. They would be condemned to silence. Foreign governments will read the message as U.S. indifference toward their own friendlier policies toward Cuba. In Latin America this will signal a return to the Cold War U.S. policy of "benign neglect" toward dictatorships. Such an impression would be dangerous on a continent with a history of military coups.

Castro is well aware that there's been a total loss of faith in his regime among members of the country's ruling class. He also knows that there is an absolute disbelief in Cuban communism. Some of his own children, grandchildren, and nephews have fled the country in recent years, and it is well known that many others -- relatives of his ministers and generals -- also want to leave. They sense that they are experiencing the last moments of the regime. With good reason they believe that the minute Castro disappears, the power structure will tremble and repressed ambitions will erupt.

The reaction to such uncertainty from abroad could be catastrophic for Castro's intended successors. Investors and financiers would likely cease operations and wait to see what happens. Visitors, except for journalists, would eschew trips to Cuba, preferring to tan themselves in one of the twenty other Caribbean countries. Western governments would adopt a studied detachment while they wait for the transformation. Castro's death would be a catalyst for change, as Franco's was in Spain and as occurred all over Eastern Europe. The resulting paralysis will exacerbate the internal crisis, until it becomes clear that democratic transition is the only alternative.

Unless, of course, the U.S. decides to give Castro a final embrace on his deathbed. That would facilitate the power succession to his brother Raul and revitalize a regime that has withered with its leader. The danger of this outcome is real.

Sen. Bryan Dorgan (D., N.D.) and other members of the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, have said that a policy failing to accomplish its goal after four decades should be modified. It's a beguiling argument. Yet Truman's 1947 policy of containment toward communism did not bear fruit until the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989. If President Reagan had not stood firm against the Soviets, something many allies disliked, it is possible that the USSR would still exist.

No one knows the exact moment a sound political strategy will meet its objective. But it seems clear that changing Cuba policy now, when Castro's death is near, would be counterproductive. A better approach would be to take up the 1997 Clinton initiative, which promised Cubans generous aid as soon as a transition to democracy began. Mr. Bush could promote this idea and explain to Cubans that the U.S. will reserve reconciliation for the moment after the death of El Comandante, when the changes begin.

The U.S. needs a coherent terrorism policy. It makes little sense to condemn terrorist states 10,000 miles away while encouraging one 90 miles offshore. Nor can the U.S. ignore the statements made by former Soviet colonel Ken Alibek, who was once in charge of Soviet biological weapons production. In his book "Biohazard" (Random House, NY, 1999) he says he believes that in the 1980s, Cuba, with the help of USSR, created a laboratory to produce this type of weapon of mass destruction.

Other anti-terrorism policy concerns deserve attention as well. It's absurd to expect the defeat of Colombia's communist narco-guerrillas while simultaneously improving relations with a government that for decades has nourished them. Cuba still serves as a refuge for the rebels, for the assassins of Chilean senator Jaime Guzman and for Basque ETA terrorists.

U.S. policy toward Cuba is a matter of patience. Acting rashly now could unnecessarily prolong the agony of the Cuban people and give new life to an enemy of the U.S. that is close to its natural demise.

Mr. Montaner is a writer and syndicated columnist. His most recent books include "Journey to the Heart of Cuba," Algora Publishing, New York, 2001 and "The Twisted Roots of Latin America," Plaza and Janés, Barcelona, 2001.