Having already said so pretty clearly already, I saw few if any redeeming features in Jeffrey Goldberg’s treatment in The Atlantic of whether Israel might attack Iran. I’m not going to recant, but I do have to concede that the article had at least one redeeming feature after all: It got Fidel Castro’s attention and prompted a startling reversal of position on the part of the aging Cuban leader.
As reported this week in the Financial Times and elsewhere, Castro invited Goldberg to Havana to discuss the article. Although the octogenarian Castro had predicted just months ago that Israel or the United States would attack Iran under cover of the World Cup–was he confusing the situation with Putin, Georgia and the Olympics?–he now concedes that Iran’s attitude toward Israel, Jews and the Holocaust is a serious problem.
“The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours–there is nothing that compares to the Holocaust,” Castro reportedly told Goldberg.
Equally noteworthy was Castro’s admission that Cuba’s economic philosophy no longer works and that it is no longer a model for any country, even Cuba itself. An amazing statement from the crippled lion, reflecting on his life’s work.
