Colonel Wilkerson's post, below, sums up my thinking on the rationale for changing policy on Cuba perfectly. That is, Cuba policy is an easy-to-change symbol of Washington's dysfunctional foreign policy and change offers a unparalleled opportunity to re-shape our Hemispheric relations.

The bi-lateral issues with Cuba will work themselves out, once we get our policy aligned with a more sound global and hemispheric strategy.

But one of those bi-lateral issues that really highlights how strategically short-sighted our Cuba policy has become is the case of Luis Posada Carriles. I won't go into the back story, but suffice it to say that Posada is a Cuban-born, U.S.-trained, regional terrorist whose illustrious career included running Venezuelan intelligence, attempting the assassination of Henry Kissinger, arming the Contras as part of Iran-Contra, and bombing an airliner bound for Cuba.

In November of 2000, Posada was caught in Panama City with 200 pounds of explosives while preparing to blow up Fidel Castro at the Ibero-American Summit. In 2004, the out-going Panamanian President, Mireya Moscoso, pardoned Posada and 140 others. On Monday, those pardons were overturned by Panama's Supreme Court.

Extraditing Posada to Panama will have to be part of the package of policy changes that the next president should implement. But until this week, Posada was a bit of a conundrum. Extradition to Cuba's notorious prisons was a non-starter, but sending him back to Panama is a different story altogether.

Obviously, the major elements of any shift in U.S. policy will be the embargo, travel, and normalization. But problems like Posada only get in the way of the right kind of strategy for dealing with Cuba.

That strategy has to be, in short, sink or swim on your own. Cuba must stand on its own two feet in the global economy. With investment and trade opportunities now from around the world, they already do not need U.S. trade to meet the needs of their people. Yet the Cuban economy is still a wreck, and their government knows it, as evidenced by Raul's feverish pace of reform. As long as our embargo is in place, however, Havana will continue to blame economic failure on el colosso del norte.

The next Cuba policy needs to give Havana no excuse. If you want U.S. investment and trade, Washington is not stopping you. You will, however, need to create the market conditions around property, labor, tax, and profits that companies need to do business. If you fail, you fail on your own. Not because the United States has a worthless embargo...or is a training ground for anti-Castro terrorists.