Castro Resigns: Too Bad Chavez Isn't Leaving Office Too

Fidel Castro resigned as President and Commander-in-Chief of Cuba overnight. This is a very unusual step for a dictator to take.

We are accustomed to seeing dictators dying while in office; either through natural causes, assassination, or their being overthrown either by their country's military or by a civilian uprising--either while they're directing their forces to fight against the uprising, or when they're out of the country on business.

For a dictator to resign because of poor health puts Castro into a different class of dictator. And no, it's not because he's steering Cuba toward democracy either. That's wishful thinking.

The only change that will happen for the time being will be the first name of the person at the top of the Cuban food chain. That's it.

This would be a bigger deal if Castro was still the region's most dangerous man. But he hasn't been since 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to unleash a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Castro's Soviet handlers kept him on a tight leash and the crisis abated; in later years he sent Cuban troops to other nations around the world to support Communism overseas.

Today the Mouth of the South and the region's most dangerous man is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has turned Venezuela into a communist training camp and arms supply depot for insurgents looking to overthrow neighboring governments who do not hold Marxism in the same high regard as Chavez. Too bad he isn't following Castro out the door.

The real changes in Cuba will start to come after Raúl Castro leaves office as well. Not before.