Robb: Hell's bells, where's our Hellfire?

I favor normalizing relations with Cuba. And I think the GOP depiction of President Obama as an international weakling is overdone.

Nevertheless, I can’t fathom why the administration proceeded with normalization without obtaining the quiet return of the wayward American Hellfire missile that ended up in Cuba.

The inert missile had been sent to Europe for a training exercise. Somehow, it got misshipped to Cuba on its return trip. At this point, it is unknown whether that was from incompetence or guile. Regardless, now there is concern about its technology being shared with troublesome regimes around the world.

That Cuba had the missile was known as normalization negotiations were underway. In these negotiations, unlike the Iranian ones, the U.S. held all the cards.

The Obama administration has been criticized for not obtaining the release of American captives as part of the Iranian deal. But in that case, the United States was seeking to gain something very important to us, the curtailment of Iran’s nuclear program.

Whether more skilled negotiators could have also obtained the release of the captives isn’t something outside kibitzers can truly know.

But in the case of Cuba, the U.S. gains very little from normalization. Cuba gains a lot.

We should have gotten the missile back.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.