A scary thought

By now everyone that's interested has thought about the possible scenarios that led to Monday night's announcement by fidel castro's personal secretary that el maximo hp was having a surgical procedure and that his power was being "temporarily" ceded to several underlings including his brother raul.

One of the theories that most of are hoping is false is that this is some sort of trick by castro. That he created this chaotic moment to test his subordinates and the Cuban people. It seems unlikely that fidel would risk an outright rebellion in such an exercise, but suppose he wasn't testing his subordinates or the Cuban people but instead George W. Bush and the United States of America.

Could fidel be attempting to provoke the U.S. into the confrontation that he has long wanted?

If this theory has merit, he would want the U.S. to engage in some action that he could call an act of agression or a violation of Cuban sovereignty and appeal to anti-American world sentiment.

If so, perhaps fidel is angry right now that the U.S. is acting so cautiously. Perhaps he will rachet up the pressure with staged events intended to lure the U.S. into some sort of action (by rounding up dissidents or allowing Cubans to flee by raft, etc).

Remember he doesn't care about the Cuban people, this is about him vs. the U.S. Facing his own mortality, perhaps fidel sees his window for engage the U.S. into "the mother of all battles" closing.

This is all in the category of very remote probability but scary nonetheless.