CUBA TRAVEL U.S.

Lift the embargo on Cuba

by The Editorial Board

It's been 49 years since the U.S. government clamped down on the regime of Fidel Castro, the stubbornly resilient revolutionary-turned-president who still pontificates from his sickbed while his brother Raul governs the impoverished island country.

In the almost half-a-century that the trade and travel embargo has been in effect, it's time to conclude that both sides have made their points and that little further purpose is served by extending the hemispheric deep freeze. In fact, if the U.S. were to lift the embargo on travel and commerce between Cuba and the United States, it would deprive the Castros of their David-and-Goliath posturing so popular in the rest of the Americas. It would help the Cuban people gain access to a critical market for food, equipment, household needs and services. And it would acknowledge the reality that Cuba poses little threat to the United States, especially now that the island country is deprived of Soviet sponsorship.

Put another way: In what way has the embargo been a success? It kept the Castro regime from flourishing, perhaps, but hasn't loosened the Castros' grip on power, and has imposed hardships on the Cuban people. Most significantly, it remains a vestige of the situation that prevailed in 1960, before space flight, before AIDS vaccines and before the collapse of the Soviet superpower. It no longer is relevant to the landscape of 2009.

It's a good time to re-calibrate America's relationship to Cuba, as Fidel Castro now is a spent force and Raul Castro is maneuvering into closer relationships with such anti-American regimes as Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. America's season of change, heralded by the election of a president who looks more like most Cubans than Fidel Castro, presents a timely opportunity. Obama is freer than perhaps any of the previous nine American presidents to change the relationship with Cuba, while remaining firmly on the side of free markets and free peoples.

The relationship with Cuba has been held hostage by the politically powerful community of Cuban exiles in vote-rich Florida, but that no longer is sufficient reason to extend a pointless embargo.

This is not meant to signal an exoneration of the Castros, who followed their coup with a reign of terror and then administered a brutally punishing regime on the Cuban people. But a useful parallel today might be America's relations with China and Taiwan, which have evolved to recognize the might and immovability of China while continuing commercial and political support for Taiwan. The world, it's fair to say, is a better place because China and the United States have achieved some basic understandings.

It's likely that the same would be true of Cuba. Let's try it for a while. Say, for 49 years.