“Cuba’s next,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, after the U.S. and Israel began strikes on Iran.
The U.S. has imposed an oil blockade on the communist-run island nation since January, shortly after its ally and a key provider of oil, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was seized in an extraordinary U.S military operation. It has caused a worsening economic crisis and left Cuba facing its biggest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now Iran, with which Cuba has a strategic partnership, is under sustained attack. “This communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered,” Graham told Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America.”
Before the Iran strikes, Trump said he wanted a “friendly takeover” of the island, without giving details. The comments, alongside the U.S. attacks on Iran and Venezuela, have done little to allay growing fears in Havana, experts told CNBC.
A “friendly takeover” could resemble Venezuela in the aftermath of Maduro’s removal, “where you still have an authoritarian regime in power but moving in the direction and at the speed that the US determines,” said Carlos Solar, senior research fellow, Latin American Security at RUSI, a London-based defense think tank.
