HAVANA, Cuba. – Less than 24 hours after the Cuban Television News assured that any rumor about the flight of Bashar al-Assad was part of a disinformation plan by some press agencies, the dictatorship fell, and it did so—through hasty negotiation with the opposition—just as that great ally said it would never do. of Castroism who has gone to take refuge in Moscow, the same fate that his friends in Havana probably have planned, since there is no other place to hide and receive protection in a world where dictators are no longer well regarded.
However, although some of us sometimes like to imagine that the fall of a dictatorship out of obligation brings with it the end of the others, especially when it comes to allies, the truth is that it will take a long time for Havana to take place. circumstances similar to those that occurred in Damascus, although not too much so that we see those here negotiating (publicly or secretly) with the “enemy” a way out of the current crisis that is undoubtedly terminal, but not with the opposition, who does not have the power or the international articulation necessary to offer any guarantee.
Realistically, the end of the Cuban dictatorship will bear very little resemblance to what happened in the Arab country, not even by the coincidence of having the same Russian protector who, undoubtedly, ordered the passivity and withdrawal of his army when for days Before, he knew of the imminent fall but, above all, of the possibility of negotiating at a time when it has become unsustainable to maintain several combat fronts, with Ukraine being the main concern.
Based on information from the place, we have learned that from the Plaza de la Revolución have observed with “great concern” what happened and, above all, they have been traumatized by the inefficiency of the Russian army but even more so by that “dirty” move by Putin that reveals him completely in his role as a deceitful and fickle trafficker, which has destroyed all trust in a second. that they had deposited in a protector who could well abandon them at the same moment that Donald Trump, another high-caliber negotiator, asks him to do so. In fact, the latter has expressed confidence in being able to successfully handle the conflict in Ukraine, and this is partly because he knows well how to dialogue with the former KGB officer.
The Castro and Continuistas are so shocked by the events, so insecure, that they responded with denial until the last minute, instinctively clinging to the disinformation strategy that Russia Today and ITAR-TASS deployed by order of the Kremlin to watch Bashar al-Bashar’s back. Assad while he picked up his matules and ran to the airport.
They did not deny it as accomplices of the escape but as truly uninformed naïves who are now sinking in the terror of a certainty: the protection of Russia is no guarantee to bravado to the neighbor to the North, much less to impress and intimidate a White House that , seen what has been seen in Syria during the last hours, understands that the proximity of Havana and Moscow can be worrying for the national security of the United States but not as much as some Chinese spy bases that They increasingly appear better defined and located in satellite images.
Armed Russians 90 miles away are a problem, without a doubt, especially when they brush past them, whether as soldiers in submarines or disguised as tourists for whom an oil company pays vacations in the Caribbean, but Trump will still know how to drive them away without shooting a single shot, barely negotiating a withdrawal that may take the Cuban leaders by surprise, now convinced, after what happened in Syria, of their dangerous position on an international game board where they are not even pieces, just something minimal, like dust that falls by accident.
Russia as a card up their sleeve, already discovered by the opposing player, and Syria as a political ally (and oil supplier if the situation had turned in their favor with Russian support) have been lost as a realistic possibility, and although they know that, at least for now, they will not end their days pressured by a civil war or by an external invasion, they also realize that they are living their last hours, that unpopularity and unrest are growing, at a pace similar to ungovernability but, above all, that there is considerable strength within of their own communist ranks who are pushing (and plotting) for a change of course, and that witch hunts are no longer enough to maintain control.
If it’s been a little over a week They sent a distress signal to Donald Trump to open the possibility of a dialogue, having Putin as a bodyguard, they are now aware that—Chinese spies aside, since the success of espionage is to go unnoticed, and there is no irrefutable proof of their existence—they will almost go naked and begging. for a cloth to keep warm.
The Cuban dictatorship will fall or change enough to survive under the guise of a democracy, without a doubt, but not as a result of the fall of Bashar al-Assad, but because it is already closing its “vital” cycle with the death of its “ historical”, added to the war of revenge of his heirs (natural and artificial), and that fundamental detail is well known to Moscow, just as it knew it when it enrolled in the Syrian conflict for personal convenience, strategic, and not for true help to an ally.
The Russians know that the Cuban dictatorship is possibly on its last legs, just as the Cuban leaders have just discovered another vulnerability, perhaps the most lethal of all. So, both for a dialogue table (simulated) and for an exit (also simulated, of course) the countdown begins.
