Time Magazine prints some of the speculation of what a post-Fidel Cuba will look like.

Frankly, I don't think anyone has a clue. It reminds me of the foreign service crap about Saddam's potential as a moderate--wishful thinking.

In truth, Raul really has little choice but to be practical. He is known to be more down-to-earth and sociable than Fidel — unlike Fidel, he loves to drink, dance and tell ribald jokes — and he has been Fidel's most trusted No. 2 since they were guerrillas fighting in Cuba's eastern Sierra Maestra in the 1950s. But Raul enjoys little if any of the mystical popularity that Fidel still retains, at least among older Cubans, and which has helped keep him in power since his 1959 revolution. That's a big reason why the government in recent months has engineered a p.r. makeover for Raul that included a lengthy article in the official mouthpiece, Granma, highlighting his warm and fuzzy side as a family man and grandfather. But that may not do the trick. To forge a viable connection with Cuba's 11 million beleaguered people, many analysts believe Raul will also have to loosen their leashes more than Fidel ever allowed.

No choice? Whoever wrote this doesn't understand something fundamental about oppressive regimes--when the chips are down, they get more oppressive, not less. Governments and people, tend to go with what works for them--in Europe the tendancy is towards appeasement, and when the going gets rough, the Europeans appease--its what they know, its what they do. If Raul Castro finds power slipping through his fingers, he'll also go with what he knows--brutal repression.

Raul Castro is not some apparatchnik acclimated to obsequious compromise. He's had the power of life and death his entire life and has become an expert at wielding it. There is no Gorbachev in Cuba, only one more Stalin.