Castro Knows He Can Keep Upping the Bid on Obama

at 8:25 PM

From Investors Business Daily's Editorial Board:

Castro Is Now Issuing Demands On U.S. -- Well Done, Mr. Obama

Soon after President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, Sen. Marco Rubio called him the worst negotiator since Jimmy Carter. Cuban officials are now proving Rubio right.

As soon as Obama made his announcement, it became clear he'd pretty much given up the store and gotten nothing in return.

Cuba didn't have to make any concessions on freedom of speech, democratic elections, a market economy. It didn't have to turn over U.S. fugitives, including a convicted cop killer, whom it's been protecting for years.

Indeed, as we noted in this space after Obama's announcement, Raul Castro was soon bragging about how he'd struck a deal with Obama "without a single sacrifice of our principles."

Castro apparently feels no need to do so in the future, either. After the opening round of talks, Cuban diplomat Josefina Vidal told the AP that "changes in Cuba aren't negotiable."

Now, to add insult to injury, Castro has started issuing his own set of demands.

In a speech at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit in Costa Rica on Wednesday, he said there'd be no normalization of relations unless the U.S. ends the trade embargo, closes the naval base at Guantanamo Bay and takes Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terror.

Oh, and he also wants the U.S. to stop allowing Cubans to stay in this country just because they manage to set foot on American soil. That's been causing a brain drain from the island, you see.

Castro has even told Obama what to do, saying in his speech the president should "use with resolve his broad executive powers to substantially change the scope of the blockade, even without the Congress' decision."

Why shouldn't Castro be so brazen? Obama has already shown his hand. So Castro knows he can keep upping the bid, assuming — most likely correctly — that Obama will do anything to keep the normalization process from folding.

If this were the only time Obama has miserably failed at the bargaining table, it would be bad enough. But it's just the latest in an continuing and ominous pattern — from his dealings with Iran, his prisoner exchange with the Taliban, his phony "red line" in Syria, his "reset" with Russia, etc.

Come to think of it, saying Obama is the worst negotiator since Jimmy Carter is actually an insult to Carter.