Actor Cleavon Little Holds Himself Hostage in "Blazing Saddles"

There is this great scene at the end of Blazing Saddles in which Cleavon Little, playing Bart, is surrounded by a posse of white cowboys and, putting his six-shooter to his own head, says something to the effect of, "stop or the black man gets it."

That is what the U.S. has been doing with our Cuba policy since at least the end of the Cold War. By maintaining the embargo, the travel restrictions and the extraterritorial provisions of the Helms Burton legislation--all as statutory policy--the U.S. has said that we would rather damage our relations with all the other nations of the Hemisphere than allow a non-threatening, highly educated, doctor-exporting nation of 11 million people 90 miles to our south--to determine its own fate.

An editorial in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this morning seems to get it, even if some of the details of its argument are dated. The title of the piece is 'U.S. Policy Towards Cuba Isolates Itself."

Some of the mistakes are simple inertia. The Sun-Sentinel's editorial team transfers past assumptions that U.S. policy would not change until Fidel Castro passes from this earth, my sense is that the folks looking at Cuba policy at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue today are not so hung up on el Jefe. Also, the Sun-Sentinel also does not go far enough with their analysis of how the U.S. policy backfires. Here's how the Sun Sentinel put it:

It's all guesswork because the policy of isolating Cuba has also isolated U.S. leaders and U.S. policy. What's been most embargoed is U.S. influence in Cuba.

From my perspective, the greatest opportunity cost of maintaining the embargo is that we cannot remake our dysfunctional relationship with the rest of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in her confirmation hearings that she wants to show up in Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas and talk about energy partnerships.

Well, the price of doing business freely down there will be moving towards ending the embargo. We don't have to normalize relations, but the embargo is a festering sore that the LAC heads of state are keeping front and center. For President Obama and Secretary Clinton, they need to make a choice. In my book, our influence over Cuba is decidedly secondary to our relations with our entire neighborhood. That's the reason we need to move on from this counter-productive policy and quickly.