Washington has been waiting ever since. For decades, successive U.S. presidents have convinced themselves that Cuba is on the brink of collapse and tougher sanctions can push it over. Dwight Eisenhower thought that cutting off U.S. imports of Cuban sugar would roll back the revolution before the end of his term in office. John F. Kennedy thought the\u00a0Bay of Pigs<\/a>\u00a0and the CIA\u2019s secret war would do the trick. Lyndon Johnson hoped to strangle the Castro regime by recruiting Latin America and most of Europe to join the U.S. embargo. Richard Nixon turned a blind eye to terrorist attacks by Cuban exile groups, and Ronald Reagan ratcheted up economic sanctions and put Cuba on the\u00a0terrorism list<\/a>\u2014all to no avail.<\/p>\n Despite repeated failures, Washington officials keep convincing themselves that the policy of pressure will work if we just keep at it. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, they were certain that Cuba would be the next communist domino. In August 1993, the\u00a0CIA concluded<\/a>, \u201cThere is a better than even chance that Fidel Castro\u2019s government will fall within the next few years.\u201d The obvious implication: there was no point in seeking reconciliation with an adversary about to collapse.<\/p>\n When the Cuban regime survived that depression, the rationale shifted: Fidel Castro was the linchpin holding the system together; when he died, the regime would die with him. In 2006, Fidel fell ill and transferred power to his brother Ra\u00fal Castro, leading\u00a0Thomas Shannon<\/a>, assistant secretary of state in George W. Bush\u2019s administration, to predict the regime\u2019s imminent end. \u201cAuthoritarian regimes are like helicopters. There are single fail point mechanisms,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen an authoritarian leader disappears from an authoritarian regime, the authoritarian regime flounders\u2026. That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bush.jpg\" "\\"Vice")