As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to promote regularization of U.S. diplomatic and economic relationships with Cuba. As president, Mr. Obama has followed through on that promise. Much of his work in that regard has been behind the scenes as pressing problems in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere have required more public attention. The well-intended efforts, though, are unlikely to bear fruit. Overwrought rhetoric from Cuba's leaders and their continued campaign to stifle basic personal freedoms in the island nation are eroding U.S. support for improved relations.
The latest diatribe against the president came late last month when Bruno Rodriguez, Cuba's foreign minister, publicly called Mr. Obama an "imperial and arrogant" liar. The remark was made following the Copenhagen climate conference, but the context is unimportant. Such comments never have a place in diplomatic discourse.
Mr. Rodriguez's claim is baseless. Mr. Obama, in fact, continues to be, if not a friend, a straight-forward and fair-minded advocate for an improved relationship between the two countries despite the charges hurled at him. Indeed, the latest deterioration of U.S.-Cuban ties is the result of continued provocation from Cuban leaders. That intransigence, not Mr. Obama, is the impediment to an improved relationship.
Mr. Rodriguez's outburst is part of what seems to be a carefully orchestrated campaign by Cuba's new regime to consolidate control by bashing the United States. Not long before Mr. Rodriguez's intemperate remarks, Fidel Castro, the long-time ruler who ceded power to his brother, Raul, in February 2008, wrote that Mr. Obama was "deceitful, demagogic and full of ambiguities," adding that the president's "friendly smile and African-American face" hide the United States' true intentions in the region. What insulting nonsense.
Raul Castro is equally provocative. He recently suggested that military exercises conducted by the Cuban military were designed to prepare for a U.S. invasion. Such talk is baseless, but is calculated to convince Cubans that they are threatened by their neighbor to the North and that only the current communist government can protect them. That's nonsense, too.
Most Cubans want the improved economic and social conditions that closer ties between the two nations would promote. Cuban authorities pay lip service to that idea, but their talk and their actions -- including harassing and arresting dissidents who challenge the government and its long-standing policies -- suggest that they are far more interested in preserving their own power than in working with Mr. Obama to improve the lot of those they govern. Not much, it seems, has changed in Cuba in the last 50 years.