Subject: Re: Cuba: Critical mass?
The US is preparing to indict Raul Castro for his role in the shootdown of two planes in 1996. But now fuel has run out and protestors are in the streets:

Taking action under the guise of law enforcement, rather than as a military exercise, does present some benefits to the Administration. As seen with Venezuela.

It will be very interesting to see what the President tries to do, and what he is able to do, in Cuba. I'm not sure the Administration would regard a similar outcome to Venezuela (where you have a change of the head of government but virtually the rest of the regime is left in place) as a success. It would probably be much more difficult to present it as one. And due to the Cuban Adjustment Act, a much larger proportion of the Cuban population in the U.S. are voting citizens than with Venezuelans - so that constituency has much stronger avenues to communicate their opinions about Cuba policy.

From what little conversations I've had about it with my various Cuban relatives by marriage, it doesn't seem like they would be happy merely to have Castro and a few cronies plucked out of power. But they're all die-hard Trump supporters, as are many Cubans down here. It's very easy for them to push back on that idea when nothing's happened, when Trump hasn't yet decided how far (and no farther) the Administration is willing to go. Once that happens, the price of disagreeing with the decision goes way up. Still, I think any outcome that allows the existing government to continue in power would be considered disappointing.....