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For Iraq answer, look to Cuba

''HOW WILL the Iraq war end?" asked H.D.S. Greenway (op ed, Dec. 27). He might look to the result of the US intervention in Cuba.

In 1898, under false pretenses -- the sinking of the battleship Maine -- Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders intervened in the Cuban revolutionary war. They usurped the claim of Cubans to shape their own destiny, and until Castro's 1959 revolution, the United States ruled Cuba by proxy.

Today our boycott and presence at Guantanamo Bay give Cubans reason to tolerate a repressive government. Castro used the CIA-sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 to remind Cubans that they must sacrifice civil rights to protect ''homeland security."

At best, the war in Iraq will end when someone with Castro's charisma unifies the country. At worst, Iraq will break into three republics. In either case, the outcome is beyond our control.


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