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OPINION
Opinion

Castro's legacy of failure: Our view

Continue policy of engagement.

The Editorial Board
USA TODAY
Fidel Castro after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista's regime on Feb. 6, 1959.

Fidel Castro was a survivor but not a success.

He survived guerilla warfare in the 1950s and claimed the leadership of Cuba for nearly half a century.

He survived a botched attempt to overthrow him, quickly defeating about 1,400 CIA-trained exiles who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

He, and the rest of humanity, survived the Cuban missile crisis, which brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war the following year.

He survived harebrained CIA schemes to kill him, including ones involving toxic cigars and exploding seashells, and dozens of later assassination plots by Cuban exiles.

Rep. Diaz-Balart: Lifting sanctions won’t help Cubans

And even after a serious gastrointestinal illness forced him to turn over power to his brother Raul in 2006, Fidel survived for another decade before dying of natural causes — what his opponents called the “biological solution” — on Friday at age 90.

By virtue of his charismatic personality, longevity in office and ability to torment a succession of U.S. presidents, Castro was a major 20th century figure. He was a spellbinding, if long-winded, speaker who became a hero to many on the American Left.

But, ultimately, Castro left a legacy of failure. He stayed in power not by popular consent but through a brutal dictatorship that imprisoned or executed thousands of opponents. He tried unsuccessfully to export his Marxist revolution throughout Latin America and Africa. And he turned his beautiful island nation into an economic basket case rather than a socialist utopia.

With Fidel passing from the scene — at last — where do U.S.-Cuban relations go from here?

Raul Castro could seize the opportunity of his older brother’s death to step up the pace of reform and reconciliation. The rest will be largely up to the new U.S. administration, and on Sunday incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said President-elect Donald Trump is “absolutely” willing to reverse the policy of engagement initiated by President Obama.

That would be a mistake.

Obama restored diplomatic relations, loosened restrictions on banking and travel (the first regularly scheduled U.S. commercial flight to Havana is scheduled for Monday) and called on Congress to repeal the decades-old economic embargo. In March, Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge did so in 1928.

While there is certainly room to press the Cuban regime harder on human rights issues, there is no reason to believe that a continuation of sanctions will hasten the regime’s demise or make life better for the Cuban people.

The economic embargo has not triggered a popular uprising or forced the regime to tolerate dissent. In fact, it has done little but give the Castro brothers a convenient scapegoat for their own economic mismanagement.

Cuba is no longer the security threat it was when it had the backing of the Soviet Union. Now it's just another failed communist state. As such, the biggest danger it poses to the United States continues to be the potential for waves of economically desperate refugees.

“Socialismo o muerte,” Fidel Castro liked to say in his later years. Socialism or death. Well, now he is dead, and the communist regime he established is living on borrowed time. When the regime crumbles, as it ultimately will, America should be positioned on the right side of history.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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