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HAVANA, CUBA: A Cuban stays near a plaque with an early picture of President Fidel Castro at a street of Havana 28 November, 2006. Cuba has pulled off what the United States thought it never would, prolonging Latin America's only communist regime without Fidel Castro directly at the helm, analysts say. "The US long thought almost exclusively of a rupture scenario: that if Castro is gone, there would be no system," Lisandro Perez, a Cuba expert at Florida International University in Miami, said by phone, as the world watches to see if Castro will appear in person at 80th birthday celebrations this week. Castro, who underwent intestinal surgery in July, put his brother Raul Castro, the 75-year-old army chief, in place as the regime's interim leader. AFP PHOTO/DIANE MAYA (Photo credit should read DIANE MAYA/AFP via Getty Images)