Biden administration doesn’t seem to have a plan to secure a free Cuba. But we do | Opinion

“End the Regime!” This demand was heard during the anti-communist rebellion in Cuba, proving the people want to eradicate the regime, instead of reform. It also revealed that the United States did not have a plan to deal with that reality, just as it did not have a plan to deal with Afghanistan.

This may be contributing to President Biden’s reluctance to support regime change, fearing the island could erupt into chaos as Libya did in 2011 and Afghanistan has now.

Although the United States does not have a transition plan, the Initiative for Democratic and Economic Alternatives (IDEAs) for Cuba has one in development. It’s a project designed by academic experts and those from the public- and private sectors. Unlike Afghanistan, this plan does not require the United States to invest and hope for certain results. Instead, it provides for U.S. support after steps are undertaken in Cuba.

One objective is to assure U.S. policymakers that Cuba’s freedom is not to be feared as a failed state, but instead embraced as an opportunity to realign the region and stave off Russian and Chinese attempts to gain global momentum.

A second objective is to assure the Cuban people and its military leaders, most of whom do not partake in the lavish lifestyle of the Castro family, that the United States can rebuild Cuba’s infrastructure once the Castro dynasty is truly out of power.

These two objectives can be achieved by activating a largely ignored part of the so-called U.S. embargo. Title II of the 1996 LIBERTAD Act, drafted in part by Sen. Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calls upon the president to provide assistance to Cuba once it schedules internationally supervised free and fair elections; frees all political prisoners; and recognizes all fundamental civil liberties.

Economically, the United States can provide loan guarantees to rebuild crumbling infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, roads and airports; and new construction of 1 million housing units to satisfy Cuba’s estimated housing deficit.

These initiatives would provide jobs and kickstart the economy with the creation of two new financial institutions: a mortgage guarantee system to purchase new homes; and a micro-business loan program, such as the one developed in Bangladesh that won the Nobel prize.

A successful transition also requires substituting Cuba’s sham Soviet legal process for a new constitution with an independent judiciary protecting civil rights and private property.

Until the new constitution is in place, the transition could either rely on the Czech model — which temporarily used the communist constitution — while simultaneously adopting the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights so anything contrary to it was annulled. Alternatively, it can revert to Cuba’s last democratically approved constitution from 1940.

While economic reconstruction and legal transformation are critical, depoliticizing police and military would follow, but not be as difficult as it was in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya for two reasons.

First, except for the Castro family and its State Security force, very few in the larger armed forces are economically vested in the regime, allowing it to be re-designed and utilized, thereby avoiding a scenario in which a disbanded army resurfaces as an insurgency.

Second, the widespread protests by all segments of society, some even using the American flag, resemble the unity seen in the Czech Republic’s nonviolent Velvet Revolution in 1989, rather than a divided country ripe for civil war.

Twenty percent of Cuba’s population lives in Miami and has thrived under the American legal, political and business culture while remaining rooted in Cuba’s day-to-day affairs. Only Israel can boast of a similar diaspora. This makes Cuba similar to the post-Soviet East and West German reunification.

The Biden administration’s commitment to a free and democratic Cuba will send a message to the world the United States is willing to invest in freedom that also deters Russian and Chinese advances beyond the region. The administration should not fear regime change in Havana. It should endorse and use the power that it wields to encourage it.

Marcell Felipe is the founder of IDEAs for Cuba, a project of the Inspire America Foundation, in collaboration with Florida International University, Columbia University, the Havel Library and the Czech Foreign Ministry.