The Council on Foreign Relations has just released a zinger report on Latin America. It's just fantastic, and I have to admit that I rarely find myself doing jumping jacks and running around my block in Dupont Circle in Washington after reading a CFR Task Force report. But I am.

I think that the 96-page document is stacked full of sensible thinking and proposals that on each and every page fundamentally reject the kind of self-destructive pugnacious nationalism that former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms and his chief acolyte John Bolton have helped institutionalize.

It's just so good. The report is titled U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality and can be downloaded as a pdf here.

I fear that CFR President and former Bush Administration senior foreign policy official Richard Haass is going to be really uncomfortable with the effusive enthusiasm that I have for the strategic intelligence of this Task Force's work, but this is the kind of thinking we need across the entire geostrategic map -- particularly on the Middle East.

The Cuba proposals are a case in point -- and in the words of one person close to the effort, the group decided to go for "the full Monty" in advocating a complete break with current, failed embargo policy of the U.S.

The Task Force chaired by former Clinton Administration US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and former four-star Army General James T. Hill endorsed the following changes to US-Cuba policy:

1. Permit freer travel to and facilitate trade with Cuba. The White House should repeal the 2004 restrictions placed on Cuban-American family travel and remittances.

2. Reinstate and liberalize the thirteen categories of licensed people-to-people "purposeful travel" for other Americans, instituted by the Clinton administration in preparation for the 1998 Papal Visit to Havana.

3. Hold talks on issues of mutual concern to both parties, such as migration, human smuggling, drug trafficking, public health, the future of the Guantanamo naval base, and on environmentally sustainable resource management, especially as Cuba, with a number of foreign oil companies, begins deep water exploration for potentially significant reserves.

4. Work more effectively with partners in the western hemisphere and in Europe to press Cuba on its human rights record and for more democratic reform.

5. Mindful of the last one hundred years of U.S.-Cuba relations, assure Cubans on the island that the United States will pursue a respectful arm's-length relationship with a democratic Cuba.

6. Repeal the 1996 Helms-Burton law, which removed most of the executive branch's authority to eliminate economic sanctions. While moving to repeal the law, the U.S. Congress should pass legislative measures, as it has with agricultural sales, designed to liberalize trade with and travel to Cuba, while supporting opportunities to strengthen democratic institutions there.

This report throughout impresses me -- and I am only bummed that I wasn't a member of this particular CFR group, as others I have participated in haven't come anywhere near the clarity and potential impact of this.

Something is changing in Washington, and it could be for the better. One just doesn't see papers of this sort too frequently emanating from institutions populated by many who know that they may face Senate confirmation hearings in the future.

The membership roster of the CFR Study Group on Latin America included former US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and General James T. Hill as mentioned but also Inter-American Dialogue President Peter Hakim, futurist and strategist (and New America Foundation board member) Francis Fukuyama, National Security Network czar Rand Beers, AOL founder James Kimsey, former Republican Congressman and German Marshall Fund Senior Fellow Jim Kolbe, author and strategist David Rothkopf, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Julia Sweig, among others. Special kudos to Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Shannon O'Neil who directed the independent task force.

-- Steve Clemons

It was quite a week. It started on Sunday with dueling teasers from Havana and Washington that saw Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez talk to Wolf Blitzer about the upcoming Day of Solidarity while Havana announced it had evidence of bad behavior by the Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Three speeches would be given, one by President Bush, one by Senator McCain and one by Senator Obama.

At the end of the week, however, what can we say really happened? Perhaps the most lasting event was the Cuban government’s release of intercepted communications between Cuban American extremists. To release sensitive intelligence seems to indicate that the Cubans are rather aggravated. They assert that the U.S. government allowed its most senior representative in Cuba to, allegedly, funnel money from radical individuals in the U.S. to dissidents in Cuba. In terms of U.S.-Cuban relations—official relations—this is the news that will last beyond the November elections and make some kind of gradual rapprochement more difficult.

The speeches, on the other hand, were interesting only for the news that the once solid Cuban-American Bloc has collapsed. While President Bush and John McCain echoed the hallowed nostrums of the hard-liners, Senator Obama took a chance, read the latest polling, and decided that he could safely argue that if he were elected, he would immediately end the restrictions on family travel and remittances. And he did that in front of the Cuban American National Foundation. Even the president of CANF called Bush’s new policy of licensing cell phone care packages, “absurd” when families are separated by U.S. travel restrictions and are risking poverty because of limitations on family remittances.

Unfortunately, none of the three speeches addressed America’s real strategic interest regarding Cuba. General Brent Scowcroft thinks we need a new Cuba policy, but none of the Presidential campaigns are willing to admit that the national interest should trump the pipe dreams of a small but vocal minority in Florida.

In reality, the details of the bi-lateral U.S.-Cuba relationship matters much less than the symbolic and strategic obstacles it presents. Our unprincipled and feckless Cuba policy is a symbol of Washington’s continued fascination with military force. The same twisted extremism that led our nation into a tragic war in Iraq is guiding our policy towards Cuba today. America’s true power in the world comes from the attractiveness of our economy and political system, while our coercive power is effective only when the international community stands with us. Reliance on coercive power alone, whether economic or military, is a sign of both weakness and a lack of faith in the founding principles of the Republic.

The Cuba embargo, like all unilateral embargoes, has failed and serves only to support the regime of Raul Castro. It is a gift to the Cuban security services and propagandists, who know that progress can be avoided as long as they can blame los Norte Americanos.

Beyond the symbolic, the failed embargo traps the Western Hemisphere in a backwards relationship with the United States. With so much energy going to this one small island nation, Venezuela is leading a resurgence of the old left and China is locking in long-term contracts for the unsustainable consumption of the Hemisphere’s natural resources.

Changing Cuba policy, dramatically, and in the first 100 days of a new administration, would shake up our strategic outlook. Letting tourism, trade and investment be America’s Ambassadors will do more in five years than in all the 50 years of embargo. Freed of the illogic of embargo and powered by a vision of economic inclusion and sustainability, American leadership in the region could asphyxiate the resurgence of Hugo Chavez’s old left with real, durable, and sustainable development in the region. Cuba would have little need for Chavez’ patronage and China’s oil rigs. Indeed, one Spring Break will do more for free enterprise in Cuba than any reform Raul could authorize.

Sadly, this week did not see any kind of vision. Just more pandering.