Diplomacy: As the Castros rejoice at President Obama's move to normalize ties, extend trade credits, take their country off the terror list and free its deadly spies, the queasy question remains: What did the U.S. get in return?

The question is being asked by the more serious leaders in Washington. Marco Rubio for one. "(Obama's) foreign policy is, at a minimum, naive and perhaps truly counterproductive to the future of democracy in the region," said the Florida senator in the wake of the giveaway.

"Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since at least Jimmy Carter, and maybe in the modern history of this country."

"When it comes to foreign policy and national security interests . .. ," added Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, "the president should be focused on exactly that — on protecting national security interests. And this doesn't do that."

Both are right, because the bottom line on normalizing ties with Cuba's military dictatorship is that the White House gave that regime everything it wanted in exchange for nothing in return.

Cuban ruler Raul Castro said as much, standing before Cuba's people in his dictator's uniform to announce that Obama's move was won "without a single sacrifice of our principles."

Obama held a handful of strong cards — including the plunging price of oil and the weakening of potential Cuban patrons from China to Russia to Iran — but instead played the deuce, offering concessions to Castro without getting so much as a pledge of democracy.

Given the numbers of Cuban refugees we accept from that brutal regime, that was something very much in the U.S. interest. So were the following:

• An end to Cuban permission for Russian jets buzzing the Gulf of Mexico, a new development as Vladimir Putin flexes his muscles to reduce U.S. influence.

• An end to arms trafficking with North Korea and a clear accounting for the 2013 incident at the Panama Canal, where North Korea was caught with a tankerful of weapons from Cuba.

• An end to Cuba's money-laundering for terrorists, mafias and cartels.

• An end to Cuban meddling in Venezuela.

• A return of fugitives from U.S. justice, such as Black Liberation Army terrorist leader Joanne Chesimard, who murdered a New Jersey police officer and then escaped prison in 1979 to a Cuban asylum.

• An agreement on environmental safeguards as Castro's partners drill the Gulf of Mexico without any.

Would any of this been too much to ask? Because the time to ask was before granting the Castroites the legitimacy of diplomatic relations, not after. Not having asked, America's hand is weaker than ever, and the aces are gone.


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