海角大神

Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky is breaking with many members of his own party and other potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 in聽offering at least some support for the president鈥檚 opening to Cuba, highlighting yet another area where he seems likely to offer a contrast but which is also likely to become an area of attack against him in a primary race:

Paul is, of course, correct in his assessment that the embargo that was put in place 52 years ago and which largely remains in effect, notwithstanding the hopeful and helpful steps that the president took yesterday, has done little to either help the Cuban people or undermine the Castro regime. As far as the Cuban people go, all that it seems to do is to ensure that an economy that has been on the rocks for decades remains there, as the nation remains cut off from what would obviously be its more lucrative trading partner and a lucrative trading partner for the US, in turn, as it was in the years before the 1959 Revolution, although this time hopefully on a much more equal footing. In the years of the Cold War, of course, the Cuban government was able to shield its people from some of the impact of the foolish economics of Castro socialism, thanks to the subsidies it was receiving from the Soviet Union. When those were cut off as the Cold War was collapsing, there was much speculation that the Castro regime would not be far behind, but the regime managed to survive and, in more recent years, has exploited its relationship with the anti-American regime in Venezuela to obtain energy supplies despite a shortage of hard currency. The regime in Havana has also been aided by the fact that, in the wake of the end of the Cold War, many European nations, along with nations like Canada, eased their own policies vis a vis Cuba, despite the fact that the US kept its embargo in place for reasons that have more to do with domestic politics and ongoing resentments from the Cold War on both sides of the 90-mile divide between the US and Cuba than with anything approaching a rational foreign policy. As Paul goes on to note, there remain a host of complicated issues between Havana and Washington, but since we know that following the same road we鈥檝e been on since 1961 isn鈥檛 going to change anything there鈥檚 nothing wrong at all with trying a different path.

In taking this position, Paul is of course differentiating himself from several potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, including Sen.聽Marco Rubio of Florida,聽聽Sen.聽Ted Cruz of Texas,聽and former Florida Gov.聽Jeb Bush, as well as what would appear to be聽the majority of the Republicans on Capitol Hill.聽This isn鈥檛 an unusual position for the senator to be in, of course, since he鈥檚 done similar things with regard to US drone and surveillance policy, as well as foreign policy; however, it does present another example of the difficulties that he is likely to face if he does, in fact, run for president in 2016. For the most part, Paul has gotten a good deal of mostly positive press coverage when he takes these contrarian positions, and he鈥檚 so far taken only a small number of attacks from fellow Republicans for his refusal to adhere to party orthodoxy. While some of those attacks have come from prominent members of the GOP like former US Ambassador to the United Nations聽John Bolton, New Jersey Gov.聽Chris Christie, former Vice President聽Dick Cheney, and Texas Gov.聽Rick Perry, they have been relatively low key so far. If Paul runs for president, and especially if he becomes a major player in the race, he鈥檚 likely to become the focus of attacks on issues such as this from all quarters of the GOP. Perhaps he can withstand them and bring to the polls in the early primary states a constituency that is truly interested in taking the Republican Party in a different direction when it comes to issues such as foreign policy and civil liberties. The senator better be prepared to take some incoming fire, though, because it is going to come, and it is going to be quite severe when it does.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.