Why President Obama Will Not Meet Fidel Castro
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visited Cuban leader Fidel Castro for two and a half hours in his home in Havana, Cuba on March 19, 2016. (AFP Photo/VTV/Getty Images)
Washington Post: Here’s why Obama didn’t meet Fidel Castro in Cuba
HAVANA -- Amid all the history-making in the Cuban capital this week, there is one landmark event that will not take place. Both Cuban and U.S. officials have made clear there will be no meeting between President Obama and former Cuban President Fidel Castro.
“Neither we nor the Cubans have pursued such a meeting,” Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters last week. Obama, he said, “will be meeting with Raúl Castro as President of Cuba. That’s the appropriate government-to-government engagement, and so that’s what he’ll be pursuing.”
Assuming Fidel Castro — for decades the international embodiment of anti-Yanqui anti-imperialism —even wanted to meet with Obama, it would be bad optics for the administration. The White House sees the visit as the pinnacle of Obama’s forward-looking policy of international engagement. Raúl Castro, who grinned and gripped Obama’s hand when they met Monday, is the face for U.S. normalization with Cuba.
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WNU Editor: For people on the left .... meeting Fidel is like a monarchist meeting the Queen, a Catholic meeting the Pope, or a groupie meeting his (or her) rock star. If the Cubans had asked President Obama if he wanted to meet Fidel .... he would not only say yes, but he would also show up early for the appointment. And as for the picture that would be taken .... it will be placed predominantly somewhere in his post-White House home.
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