Is This the Moment to Normalize US Relations With Cuba?

Is This the Moment to Normalize US Relations With Cuba?

With Senator Foreign Relations chairman and Cuba hawk Robert Menendez

mired in scandal, the embargo could finally be lifted.

Tom Hayden April 16, 2014



Until last week, New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman

of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was relatively untouchable

among Democrats, while holding virtual veto power over US Cuba policy

and being a military hawk on US policies towards Syria, Iran and Venezuela.



Not any more.



Now Menendez's grip is weakened by revelations that his very close

friend, Miami opthalmologist Saloman Melgen, topped the country in

Medicare fraud, and funneled $700,000 in campaign contributions through

a Democratic super-PAC, nearly all of which were channeled right back to

the Menendez re-election campaign in 2012. Melgen ripped off $21 million

in Medicare reimbursements that year alone by over-prescribing a

medication for vision loss among seniors.



A key question is whether Senate leader Harry Reid, whose close former

aides run the Majority PAC for Senate Democrats, will aggressively

investigate ethics violations, diminish Menendez's Senate standing, or

risk his party's association with the scandal by circling the wagons.



Federal investigations, including two raids on Dr. Melgen's clinics,

already have revealed that Menendez interceded with Medicare officials

on his friend's behalf in 2009 and 2011. Menendez is still under

scrutiny by the Obama Justice Department. Menendez acknowledges

traveling several times on Melgen's private jet and staying at the eye

doctor's posh estate in the Dominican Republic. Menendez was forced to

reimburse $58,500 for the costs of those trips when the information was

disclosed in 2010.



The important back story in the Menendez-Melger case is that US Cuba

policy is at stake.



The Cuban-born Menendez is a fierce lifetime opponent of any easing of

tensions with Havana. As a top fund-raiser and the Democratic chairman

of the key foreign relations committee, Menendez is an obstacle to Obama

and Senate liberals on a range of national security policies. He favors

regime change through military or covert means in Syria, Iran,

Venezuela, and of course Cuba. He has the power to set bills, hold

hearings, and approve or deny administration nominations. Menendez is

becoming Obama's chief domestic obstacle in normalizing relations with

Cuba. Even on an administration priority like immigration reform,

Menendez (and Senator Marco Rubio) have pledged their votes only on the

condition that their hardline position on Cuba is heeded.



Now that Menendez's grip on power is weakened, the only question is by

how much.



Only a few years ago Menendez, chairing the Senate Democrats' campaign

committee, raised hell when one of the party's biggest fund-raisers,

Hollywood's Andy Spahn, tried raising funds for candidates who supported

a new Cuba policy. Spahn, who travels often to Cuba with American

politicians and Hollywood producers like Steven Spielberg, was demonized

by Menendez and shut down. But Spahn today remains as one of Obama's top

fund-raisers, and actively supports lifting the embargo.



This year an even sharper split erupted in the Senate between Menendez

and Senator Patrick Leahy who is making a top priority of achieving a

new Cuban policy. Leahy, who engages in steady, behind-the-scenes

dialogue with Cuban officials, obtained sixty-six Senate signatures on a

December 2013 letter to Obama calling on the president to "act

expeditiously to take whatever steps are in the national interest" to

obtain the release of American citizen Alan Gross. Gross is a contractor

for the US Agency for International Development serving a fifteen-year

sentence in Cuba for covertly smuggling high-tech communications

equipment into the island. A rival letter sent by Menendez and Rubio

calling for Gross' "immediate and unconditional release" garnered only

fourteen votes, an embarrassing setback for Menendez. In the opaque

culture of Washington, the Leahy letter was interpreted as political

cover for Obama to negotiate diplomatically for Gross' release, whereas

the Menendez letter was a dud.



The Leahy-Menendez feud has deepened further with recent revelations

that the AID has operated a secret Twitter program to stir protests in

Cuba. Leahy denounces the project as "dumb, dumb, dumb" while Menendez

defends it vigorously.



National Democrats interested in Cuba commonly claim their hands are

tied on Cuba because of Menendez's role. Under the 1997 Helms-Burton

legislation, President Bill Clinton delegated to Congress the final say

over recognizing Cuba and lifting the embargo, providing the most

powerful tool in Menendez's arsenal until now. For that reason, Obama

has pursued gradual progress with Cuba through executive action—like

lifting license requirements for travel by Cuban-Americans, which has

resulted in a flow of about 500,000 Cuban Americans per year. Obama also

is conducting business-like talks with the Cuban regime on immigration,

drug enforcement and other state-to-state matters. Obama shook hands

with President Raul Castro at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, angering

the Cuban Right.



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Any ebbing of Menendez's role will help Obama to take further steps

towards normalization. For example, the State Department is considering

lifting its designation of Cuba as a "terrorist state." Such a move

would make it much easier for the Cuban government to engage with

private banks and firms who now worry about breaching US anti-terrorism

laws. While lifting the terrorist label is within the administration's

power, the decision can be challenged by two-thirds of the Senate. With

a weakened Menendez, the Senate might go along with Obama and John Kerry.



The surfacing of the Medicare scandal, Melgen's donations to Menendez,

and the links between that money and the Senate's Majority PAC now

increase the pressure on Senator Reid and Democrats to distance

themselves from Menendez. For Democratic insiders, managing the scandal

is a dicey matter, because losing the Senate in November will turn Cuba

policy over to the exiles' latest favorite son, Senator Marco Rubio.



If Democrats are uncomfortable about a nasty fight with one of their

own, who will step up? Menendez is not up for election this November.

Republicans who agree with his right-wing foreign policies may like him

where he is. Where are New Jersey Democrats? For many years the liberal

focus against the Cuban Right has centered on Miami, not so much on the

enclave of right-wing Cubans in Jersey City. The recent liberal

obsession about New Jersey has been about Republican governor Chris

Christie, not Democratic senator Menendez. The uproar over Christie,

while fully justifiable, is easier politically than Democrats taking on

a leader of their own party. But while causing traffic jams on an

interstate bridge is an outrage, how does it compare with a lone Senator

flaunting his own president, fomenting US military interventions, and

sabotaging a possible bridge to Cuba? Time will tell.



Source: Is This the Moment to Normalize US Relations With Cuba? | The

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