So Castro Was Misunderstood--Can Abbas Be Far Behind?

In the second installment on his interview of Fidel Castro, Goldberg writes that according to Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work For Us Anymore':

[D]uring the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.


This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?

I asked Julia [Sweig, a leading Latin American scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations] to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."

Needless to say, that made a big splash--and now Castro, who criticized Ahmadinejad on his Anti-Semitism, has retracted what he said. It's not that Goldberg twisted his words, it's that he didn't mean it the way it sounded:

Fidel Castro said Friday his recent comment that communist-led Cuba's economic model does not work was badly understood and that what he really meant was that capitalism does not work.

Goldberg has already responded that Fidel Tries To Wiggle Out of One.

I'm wondering if other dictators have this sort of problem. Take Abbas for instance--whose term as president of the Palestinian Authority ended almost 2 years ago. Well, El Presidente is on record as having said at the Mideast peace talks:

I can’t allow myself to make even one concession.

Will we find out that this is not what it appears?

• Maybe he meant that not himself, but only the Arabs of the West Bank, can allow him to make concessions? 
• Perhaps he really meant that he cannot allow himself to make only one concession--that really everything is on the table?
• Maybe he meant it as a rhetorical question: Can I not allow myself to make even one concession?

No, somehow I think he meant, "I can’t allow myself to make even one concession"--but whatever concessions Obama can wring out of Netanyahu on my behalf would be just dandy.

Yeah, I think that's it.

How soon will it be until Obama figures out, as Castro did, that his model doesn't work either?

Technorati Tag: Castro and Abbas and Obama.