Peter Wallsten reports in today’s Los Angeles Times that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is surging in polls in Iowa for the Republican presidential nomination, has done “a flip-flop” on Cuba. Wallsten writes,

Now that he's a top-tier candidate for president, Huckabee has decided he favors the embargo -- so much so that he vowed Monday to outdo even President Bush in strangling the regime of Cuban President Fidel Castro and punishing those who do business there.

Fred Thompson's campaign put out a helpful reminder that Governor Huckabee had supported lifting the embargo in 2002. A letter Huckabee signed to President Bush while Governor of Arkansas indicated that the embargo "harm[s] our own agricultural and business interests," "has not helped the people of Cuba" and has "provided Castro with a convenient excuse for his own failed system of government."

As a casual observer, it strikes me as strange that Governor Huckabee would sell out so unabashedly – and risk his credibility as a plain spoken leader of conviction – for a position that holds ever less support among Cuban American voters, as polls over the past few years have demonstrated.

Many Cuban Americans support “conditional engagement” with Cuba, 72 percent support negotiations with Raul Castro, and many more support an end to restrictions on travel by Americans and on trade. (See poll results from NDN and Bendixen & Associates and FIU-Brookings).

Bizarrely, the Florida State House Speaker Marco Rubio – who provided immediate evidence of a short term political bump for Huckabee - endorsed the former governor by saying that he had found "someone that will fight for what they truly believe in the depths of their heart."

I think I’m going to be sick.

-- Jake Colvin

It speaks volumes about the moment United States Cuba policy is in that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus holds a hearing and invites three strong, articulate voices for a new Cuba policy and only two of the old guard clinging to underwhelming rhetoric of Fidel the communist and constructing painful rhetorical stretches about Cuba's support for terrorism.

That's just what happened today in Dirksen 215. On the realist side of the equation were Col. Larry Wilkerson, co-chair of New America Foundation's U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative; Mr. David McClure, president of the Montana Farm Bureau; and Sgt. Carlos Lazo, Iraq war veteran and Cuban émigré. Representing the "stay the course" community, Mr. Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba and Dr. Jaime Suchlicki of the University of Miami.

Take a look at Col. Wilkerson's testimony here. It's a clear-eyed, realist case for gradual rapprochement with Cuba.

At least in this forum, the reality of modern-day Cuba is overcoming the static caricatures of the Cold War. Senators like Baucus, recently returned from Cuba, are leading the way. Cuba is ahead of the United States in access to health care, is breaking new barriers in biomedical and pharmaceutical research, and is sending doctors around the world to help countries like Pakistan and South Africa. Cuba is a major tourism destination for the rest of the world, so much so that the supply of hotel rooms cannot keep up with demand. Even Israel, which regularly votes with the U.S. in the UN against Cuba, has companies investing in Cuban citrus farms.

Senator Grassley, the ranking member on the committee, is a fascinating study in the changing mood, at least in the Senate. Grassley said today, "Given the current leadership situation in Cuba, now is perhaps an appropriate time to review the status of our bilateral relationship." Of course, he's talking about the transfer of power from Fidel to Raul. Grassley is no ideologue. He's a realist from an agricultural state and Cuba is a big new market. Change is on the way.

But perhaps the most important indicator of the changing tide on Cuba policy on Capitol Hill was a verbal altercation between Mr. Calzon and Col. Wilkerson after the hearing had concluded. Mr. Calzon walked over to Col. Wilkerson's side of the table and the conversation escalated to a polite shouting match.

The content of the argument itself was insignificant (it was about Colin Powell's view of U.S. policy towards Cuba). What is significant is that a few years ago, Mr. Calzon would have ignored Col. Wilkerson. Today his side's control of Cuba policy is not so certain.

-- Patrick Doherty

Fidel Castro has just given the world the opportunity to ponder a new direction for Cuba. Castro has issued a statement that is vague but nonetheless signals that he sees himself departing the political front line and making room for a new set of leaders.

As Center for Democracy in the Americas Director Sarah Stephens said today on a journalist conference call, "Cuban leaders don't communicate by accident." She said that "change is in the offing." And that "Castro is writing the script" of his departure as 'the decider' on Cuba's political life and course.

Peter Kornbluh, also on the conference call, says that the smooth fading into the background by Fidel Castro -- at his own pace -- helps write the final chapter for Fidel and a chapter in which he's clearly in control of the optics of all of this and hasn't been compelled or forced out.

Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, again on the conference call today, really drilled into the details of Fidel's statement. She gets Castro's complexity and sees this statement as a move in a multi-dimensional chess board in which he is both confident and aware of the many political pressures in Cuba's domestic political scene. She thinks Castro is not only saying that Cuba needs to cultivate a new generation of leaders -- but that Cuba needs to yield to them as well. And this may signal a future for a Cuba not run by either Raul or Fidel Castro.

The United States needs to tack now towards a new course. To miss yet another opportunity to change course in US-Cuba relations is a serious mistake. When Russia stopped supporting the Cuban economy, there was an opportunity to move forward US-Cuba relations. That was missed. This is the next chance.

Barack Obama has been supportive of a new course on Cuba. Frankly, Chris Dodd sets the gold standard and thinks that we need a complete overhaul of the US-Cuba relationship and a full opening of commerce, travel, and diplomacy. Bill Richardson just released this paragraph as part of a Foreign Affairs essay he just published:

The United States of America also needs to start paying attention to the Americas. We need better border security and comprehensive immigration reform. And to reduce both illegal immigration and anti-American populism in Latin America, we must work with reform-minded governments there to alleviate poverty and promote equitable development. We need to strengthen energy cooperation in the region and foster democracy and fair trade. Our efforts to promote democracy must include Cuba. We should reverse the Bush administration's policies restricting remittances to and travel to visit loved ones in Cuba, and we should respond to steps toward liberalization there with steps toward ending the embargo.

Hillary Clinton needs to tack in a new direction too. This is an opening for her to recast how she would modify US-Cuba relations given what Fidel Castro has done to make the question of whether we promote perpetuation of a US-Cuba relations cocooned in Cold War anachronism -- or whether we use Cuba as a template for signaling to the world a new and different strategy for dealing with the world.

And frankly, Mike Huckabee used to be a pro-engagement governor on Cuba but recently denied his past and said that he wants a regime even more strictly constraining than the Bush administration. Giuliani, Romney and Thompson have also not been visionaries on changing the course of both US-Cuban and US-Latin American relations, but all will need to provide a response on what their policy course would be given Castro's surprise announcement.

-- Steve Clemons