“I didn’t come here to do the same thing we have been doing or to take small steps forward. I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November.”

--President Barack Obama, radio/internet address 2/28/09

“Obama's leadership is needed to change the dynamic between the United States and Cuba. The status quo is no longer an option. Not only has it failed to achieve its goals; it has tarnished our image in the hemisphere and throughout the world. Waiting for Congress to act will only further delay change. Fortunately, even in the case of Cuba, Congress has not materially impaired this country's venerable constitutional arrangement under which the president has the ultimate authority to conduct our foreign affairs.

Again and again we hear that the embargo can't be changed because the Helms-Burton law codified it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you agree or disagree with the current commercial embargo, the president can effectively dismantle it by using his executive authority.”

--Carlos Pascual and Vicki Huddleston, Miami Herald Op Ed

If President Obama brings the same boldness to international problems as he shows domestically (above quote), and if intellectual and policy expertise matters, his Administration’s interagency review of US relations with Cuba will be a breakthrough--and receive a warm welcome. (A compilation of studies and statements released in the past year can be found here.)

Last week began with a compelling letter from Senator Richard Lugar and far reaching recommendations from senior Foreign Relations Committee staff member Carl Meacham. (pdf here) It concluded with an eminently practical road map to normalization drawn up by a diverse group under the sponsorship of the Brookings Institution.

The project directors were Carlos Pascual, Vice-President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings (a rumored prospect for an important State Department post), and Vicki Huddleston, Visiting Fellow and former head of the US Interests Section in Havana (a member of the State Department transition team). Membership ranged from pro-engagement professors, a scholar at a prominent conservative think tank, and former European ambassadors--to a Cuban American denounced by Havana as a terrorist.

From the preface, which suggests how large a departure this is from the hostile rhetoric and policy of the previous Administration and much of the past five decades:

It should be understood that a policy of critical and constructive engagement -- while having as a goal evolution to a peaceful and democratic Cuba -- does not promise an overnight metamorphosis. It is a process, a pathway with various detours and obstacles that over time arrives at its destination. It will take Cuban cooperation to achieve a real improvement in relations, but we should not publicly link the initiatives to specific actions of the Cuban government.

The road map was divided into short, medium and long-term initiatives. Go on line here to review the whole list because their achievement step by step constitute a practical road map to full normal relations. Following are selected points which I found particularly positive:

Something big is up in Havana. So big that some are saying that Fidel Castro has finally moved on to the next world -- though I don't believe this to be the case.

Others are saying that they saw Fidel out in public today on an odd shuffling, walk about, flanked by well armed security guards -- and a trailing Mercedes.

What has happened is that Raul Castro, now President of Cuba, has sacked his brother's closest followers and advisers in government.

Both Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque have been given pink slips. These were Fidel's most obvious heir apparents and his chief ideological spear carriers in the next generation of Cuban political leadership.

This is one of those historical pivot points in normally opaque (often Communist) regimes that will be remembered for generations.

Raul Castro seems fully in control now -- and he's done with ideology.

Raul not only demands pragmatism from his team, he wants a government that "works" and which can function with greater efficiency than the past. This is particularly the case given the grim reality that the global economic crisis is hitting Cuba hard -- as the price of oil has made Venezuela's patronage less robust and global tourism to and investment in Cuba have both taken significant hits in recent months.

Ideology is on feeble legs throughout Cuba despite Senator Bob Menendez's anachronistic screed on the floor of the Senate this afternoon about Cuba's governing villains. Menendez today seemed to be pining for the enemies of the past, so the warped politics of anti-Cuba, anti-Castro compulsive obsessiveness could live another day.

But Menendez is behind the times and has been complicit in undermining American national interests with Cuba for far too long -- and he and others in Cuba who have strangled opportunity for a new course in US-Cuba relations should pay a political price for for their destructive intransigence. Menendez should go check in with his friends at the formerly right wing Cuban American National Foundation who for the most part think that pols like Menendez, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balart brothers in Congress, and their Democratic Party ally Debbie Wassmerman Schulz went way too far in strangling Cuban-American family emergency travel and financial remittances.

We are at one of those significant punctuation points in Cuban history.

We may be at a real moment of opportunity in US-Cuba relations if Obama's team of foreign policy hands can find the guts and smarts to realize that it was wrong during the Bush administration for a Cold War with Cuba to actually get colder over the last ten years -- and to realize that incrementalism only works in times of historical continuity.

As Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Baker, David Abshire, Paul Volcker, Thomas Pickering, George Soros, Bill Joy, Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Francis Fukuyama, and many others have said -- this is a time of significant "historical discontinuity."

Change is needed and is a smarter, better choice than incrementalism and inertia.

Let's not see a Foreign Affairs article written this next year titled "Who Lost Cuba?"

Cuba matters a great deal -- far beyond its 11 million people and beyond even Latin America. Cuba is the ripest fruit for picking on America's tree of foreign policy options.

Change there can happen at extremely low cost to the United States. And America's approach will telegraph much about exactly what kind of America Barack Obama is trying to usher forth in this next phase of restoring U.S. benign moral, economic and political prestige. . .and power.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Yesterday in the Senate debate on the Omnibus Appropriations bill Bob Menendez (D, NJ) delivered a long and impassioned speech against Cuba. Any policy change we can imagine had a condition attached which would make it a non-starter in Havana. In the case of even family travel he took a position reflective of his long links to hard liners in Miami.

In exchange for more frequent visits from Cuban-American families who bring money and resources to the island, let us insist that the Cuban regime permit those who want to travel to Cuba and visit human rights activists, democracy activists, independent journalists, and other civil society advocates, be given visas as well.

He threatened that the Cuba language, "put the Omnibus bill in jeopardy".

After he spoke, Senator Reid took the floor, expressing warmly his long association with Menendez:

As the distinguished Senator from New Jersey knows, I have locked arms with Congressman and now Senator from New Jersey for many years. In fact, my votes in years past have not always been in the majority, but they have always been something I felt comfortable doing and still feel comfortable doing.

I appreciate the statement made by my friend from New Jersey. I am committed to work with him to see what we can do to resolve the injustice that is taking place 90 miles off the shore of America and, once and for all, give those people who live in Las Vegas--people do not realize the largest number of Cuban Americans live in Florida, next is New Jersey, and, surprisingly, next is Nevada.

I worked with my friends there, Tony Alamo and many others, over the years to try to bring justice to an unjust system. I appreciate very much the statement made by my friend from New Jersey. I look forward to working with him on all other issues.

Reid did not say he would support Menendez' goal of stripping the Cuba language from the bill. A news story says Bill Nelson, Florida's Democratic Senator, favors inclusion of the Cuba language

Amendments will be accepted for debate, but the Democrats may try to vote down all of them in order to get the bill adopted by Friday and avoid its return to the House.

However, if Menendez and Martinez succeed in blocking the Cuba language with Reid's help, this bodes ill for a stand alone Cuba travel bill. It also could have a negative effect on the Administration's interagency policy review.

[Look here for the Cuba language. See below for my previous posts on the Omnibus bill.]

I haven't had time yet to digest the Obama administration's "relaxation" of restrictions in US-Cuba relations. I'm on a boat -- and sailing in the vicinity of Cuba tomorrow, though in Curacao today.

But I will say that the Obama team needs to prepare for an onslaught of frustration and anger regarding anything that designates certain "ethnic categories" of Americans.

Relaxing Cuban-American travel is discriminatory against other Americans. We have had too much law and too many norms that didn't permit some classes of Americans access to. . .hmm. . .let's say the White House and many other positions and opportunities.

Communist governments often tell their citizens where and when they can go somewhere.

An American government only soils its own reputation by trying to restrict the travel of US citizens -- in a way not dissimilar than what the Soviets did, or the Chinese government used to do, or even the Cuban government today.

Obama needs to show the "courage of his convictions" and stand up for American democratic values with regard to US citizens. Restricting travel for any US citizens as payoff to a cabal that run a political machine in Miami is a gross violation of the social contract American citizens have with their government.

Even the George W. Bush administration for the first three years of its tenure allowed non-tourist people-to-people travel and exchange. Engagement works and would benefit American interests in the region. From what I can tell, Obama does not even go back to the status quo under the last Bush administration. That's a shame, and it's wrong.

Opening opportunities for "Cuban-Americans" as opposed to other "Americans" is something one can hardly imagine a man like Barack Obama doing.

It's wrong. He should fix this immediately. Or expect a wave of dissent about the racism and discrimination that Obama is apparently upholding in these "relaxation" moves.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.

Florida Senators Martinez and Nelson

Everyone who seeks normal relations between the US and Cuba is justifiably celebrating the one-two punch of the Cuba language in the Omnibus Appropriations bill and the OFAC regulations to implement it as the first step toward restoring freedom of travel to everyone. While Cuban Americans have not yet achieved the unlimited travel and remittances promised by candidate Obama, they have regained the ground stolen by President Bush in 2004.

The Treasury Department’s fast action through OFAC is a more significant indicator of where the Administration is heading than the fig leaf that Secretary Tim Geithner provided the two rejectionist Democrats, Senators Menendez and Nelson, so they could vote for cloture.

It is worth reading his letters carefully as they affirm that a larger change is coming.

We are, however, currently reviewing United States policy toward Cuba to determine the best way to foster democratic change in Cuba and improve the lives of the Cuban people. Your views and the views of others on Capitol Hill will be important to that review, and the President remains committed to consulting with you as we consider changes to Cuba policy. (Texts here posted by Jake Colvin.)

''The guidance issued yesterday by the Treasury Department was issued pursuant to a law passed by Congress,'' White House spokeswoman Gannet Tseggai said Thursday.

''The president was not involved in the drafting of that provision, and it does not take the place of his own review of family visits and family cash remittances,'' she added.

Americans who care need to add their weight to the Administration's discussion so the President does not stop at family travel. A Citizens' Appeal for engagement with President Obama on Cuba can be seen here in the just posted newsletter of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development.

The extent to which the other side is in a state of aggressive denial can be seen in a leaked internal memo from the US-Cuba Democracy PAC

the mobilization of Democratic Members of Congress, and their aggressive outreach to the White House and Leadership on this issue has made it clear to the Obama Administration that there is a very vocal majority, bipartisan coalition in Congress that opposes even the slightest changes to current policy

Also possible is that the White House concludes that there are a few unreconcilables so married to narrow sectarian interests that they are ready to expose their Party and President to a week of diversionary and politically costly debate about embarrassing Congressional earmarks and ballooning deficits.

While some advisers may counsel accommodating them to avoid future problems, others will note that once the President changes travel policy to the maximum non-tourist level, that issue is over as a direct White House concern. The bitter end opponents can't do much beyond grumbling to their donors and their shrinking piece of the Florida and New Jersey community,

The tactic of putting the Cuba language in the Omnibus Appropriations bill foreclosed amendments in the House, but gave disproportionate power to two Democrats in the Senate whose votes prevented cloture. The reverse will apply to the stand alone full travel bill. There should not be a major problem in obtaining subcommittee and committee approval and assembling sixty Senate votes to end travel restrictions, but the House will afford more difficult terrain at all stages.

Just a quick note to reinforce what my colleague Phil Peters is saying about the Russia-Cuba non-axis at his blog, Cuban Triangle.

My contention is that Cuba's broad international strategy follows the Yugoslav model of balancing and taking rents from multiple powers and being beholden to none. China, Russia, Brazil, sometimes the EU, and certainly the hemispheric player Venezuela all fit this model.

We will have to see if this strategy survives the transition of power in Havana, but the strategy, as Phil mentions, has its downsides. Russia's relation to the US is more strategic than its relations with Cuba, and Cuba can get the short end of the stick when its patrons' relationships to Washington change. It is a major weakness of the Cuban strategy with a new government getting on its global feet in Washington.

More soon.

There he was, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, holding forth from the well of the Senate making his Alamo stand against some very innocuous provisions to allow Cuban-American family members travel to Cuba and for American agricultural producers to carry out the business they already do with Cuba more efficiently during a time of economic recession.

Most analysts I speak with say this was a picture of a man trying to put his finger in a dike, knowing it was about to burst. Senator Menendez is, you see, the highest ranking Cuban American in Congress and, with the Diaz-Balart brothers and Rep. Lehtinen in the minority, the last hope for defending the embargo against Cuba in the 111th Congress.

Now, however, the dike has burst. At a time when the nation is reeling from the worst recession in years, our failed embargo on Cuba is keeping American farmers and businesses from significant orders. After the devastation of the 2008 hurricanes, the Cuban government is providing 75% of the food for its 11 million people. Most of that has to be imported from countries much further away than 90 miles. China just received the order for a new fleet of Cuban Buses--not Detroit. One third of Cuba's housing stock is still gravely damaged or destroyed because the island cannot get the building materials to rebuild. Yet American suppliers would be happy to fill those orders.

Today that objective reality was made political reality by 15 Senators who signed onto a letter organized by Max Baucus, an ag state Senator from Montana. Addressed to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Senators urged Tim Geithner not to stray from the letter of the law as passed by Congress in the Omnibus legislation, in effect telling Geithner that whatever deal Menendez thought he had with Treasury, it shall not stand.

This is important. The 2008 presidential election showed that the Cuban American community in South Florida no longer has a lock on Florida's electoral vote, liberating the president from having to continue a policy of isolation that makes no sense for America. This letter, and its strong showing of support in the Senate, reveals that the Congressional control that pro-embargo members had is crumbling around them.

Menendez had already angered the Administration by holding up the appointment of Science Advisor John Holdren over perceived slights on Cuba policy. That Menendez, a member of the Senate Democratic Leadership, caused such tumult and likely embarrassment for the Obama administration and for Senate Majority Leader Reid on a must-pass piece of legislation was too much, and now Senator Baucus has added some parliamentary dynamite.

The new reality is that there is no political obstacle to a decisive shift on U.S. Cuba policy. Not in Florida and not on Capitol Hill. Now the question is about political will in the White House.

I have reprinted the letter and signatories below.

In a 2007 book by Conor O'Clery entitled The Billionaire Who Wasn't, which is a fascinating and uplifting tale of the unprecedented philanthropy of Charles Feeney and his group The Atlantic Philanthropies, there is mention of Cuba. For instance, we learn that the island nation has been the recipient of some of Mr. Feeny's philanthropy and the roundabout way he had to operate to remain completely legal given U.S. law (Mr. Feeney is a U.S. citizen). Too, we hear about his meetings with such Cuban leadership figures as Fidel Castro and Ricardo Alarcón.

But it's the remarks of Mr. Feeney's daughter, as recorded by Mr. O'Clery, that really struck a resonant chord with me. I had earlier in the book learned that Mr. Feeney has accomplished miracles in Vietnam and other countries, including his ancestral homeland, Ireland, and Australia and South Africa. Then, at the head of chapter 31, Mr. O'Clery describes Mr. Feeney in Feeney's daughter Juliette's words: "Like Vietnam, Cuba had gotten a raw deal from the United States, he believed. Cuba and Vietnam came from the idea of righting an American wrong."

In other words, perhaps the greatest philanthropist in U.S. history knows how remarkably flawed U.S. Cuba policy has been for many, many years and is doing what he can to begin to rectify that wrong.

It is time the U.S. government helped him.

In Mr. O'Clery's book, as you read about this remarkable man, Chuck Feeney, not only do you gain insight into a remarkable heart, soul, and business mind but you also learn how a group of very dedicated people set out to reverse—is "pay for" too strong a phrase?—the crimes of U.S. policy.

Not with any noticeable sense of guilt or angst but with a straightforward altruism that recognizes governments for the flawed establishments they are, recognizes men and women who work in governments for the timid and conforming creatures that they by habit and custom must inevitably become, and uses the extraordinary entrepreneurial talents of a single man and his trusted colleagues to counteract these realities. It is a sublime story, as profound as the words of Noble Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney's lyrics, quoted on page 268 of O'Clery's book:

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

President Obama, let's get busy and help Mr. Feeney make hope and history rhyme for Cuba.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson

[Ed. note: The New America Foundation which hosts The Havana Note is a recipient of grants from the Atlantic Philanthropies. The comments made by Col. Wilkerson are his own.]

A word of thanks to Markos Moulitsos for picking up my piece, Senator Menendez, the Dike has Burst.

Here's a snip:

Bipartisan Senate group take aim at Cuba embargo provisions

by kos

Wed Mar 18, 2009 at 02:22:03 PM PDT

Remember Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez's quixotic stand on behalf of regressive Cuba sanctions a few weeks ago?

There he was, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, holding forth from the well of the Senate making his Alamo stand against some very innocuous provisions to allow Cuban-American family members travel to Cuba and for American agricultural producers to carry out the business they already do with Cuba more efficiently during a time of economic recession.

Most analysts I speak with say this was a picture of a man trying to put his finger in a dike, knowing it was about to burst. Senator Menendez is, you see, the highest ranking Cuban American in Congress and, with the Diaz-Balart brothers and Rep. Lehtinen in the minority, the last hope for defending the embargo against Cuba in the 111th Congress.

The dike metaphor is apt. Obama ran on rethinking Cuba policy, and won Florida. The Cuban-American community is itself split between the geezers still clinging to a generations-long failed embargo policy, and the younger crowd eager for change. Respected foreign policy experts are eager for a more rational Cuba policy, including Republicans like Dick Lugar. And farm state legislators from both parties are eager to open up a new market for their farmers' goods.

In other words, the embargo is not long for the world...

Read the full article here.

Senators Harkin, Dorgan, and Lugar

"It's sort of all over but the shouting, whether our country should maintain this embargo." --Senator Byron Dorgan

On the front page of The Washington Post today is an article by Karen DeYoung, entitled, "Momentum Grows for Relaxing U.S. Policy on Cuba." The article announces the unveiling this week of bipartisan legislation to end the ban on travel to Cuba for all Americans.

It's a party-line blurring fight. Senators Byron Dorgan (D) and Richard Lugar (R) and their House colleagues Reps. William Delahunt (D) and Jeff Flake (R) are lined up against Sen. Robert Menendez (D) and long-time House hard liners the Diaz-Balart brothers (R) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D). What it represents, however, is the first steps of a broad coalition of Members who are standing up to at long last to assert the national interest over the pecuniary interest of a small but well-monied and vocal clique that has held sway over Cuba policy for decades.

As I've written before, what we are seeing is the recognition that our Cuba policy is doing more harm than good to the United States. The policy has served more to keep the Castro regime in power than to dislodge it, by providing the communist government with a ready-made excuse for why their domestic economy is in such a shambles. The embargo itself is a massive black eye for the United States internationally and it remains the single most important issue for Latin America heads of state, as President Barack Obama will shortly find out at the Summit of the Americas. And, of course, the trade embargo is hurting American businesses, from farming to heavy machinery, to biotechnology to oil production.

The timing, however, is the consequence of the 2008 elections. The national polls tested the hypothesis that the demographic balance of forces in Florida had changed, thus freeing Washington from this onerous policy. That is indeed what happened. President Obama won Florida with only 35% of the Cuban American vote--the first time since the end of the Cold War that this happened. With 10% of the electoral college, Florida is seen as an essential state, giving any must-have constituency an outsize say in the affairs of the nation. With more recent polling showing that the 55% of the Cuban American community in Florida wants to end the embargo, the tide has unmistakably turned.

This new legislation is the manifestation of of all these changes. While the Vice President maintains a position that the administration has no intention of ending the embargo, the statement is tactical. The administration does not control the embargo, Congress does and what Congress is doing is proposing legisation that takes aim directly at the embargo while giving the President political cover.

The embargo, it seems, is not long for this world. I just hope everyone is ready for when the walls actually come down. On both sides of the Straits of Florida.

Despite the loud cries from the pro-embargo camp in South Florida, the path to improving human rights in Cuba goes through ending the embargo and our strategy of isolation, at least that is what Amnesty International thinks.

Here's a snip from this important release:

Amnesty International urges the US government to lift the nearly five–decade long economic and trade embargo against Cuba as it is detrimental to the fulfilment of the economic and social rights of the Cuban people. It obstructs and constrains efforts by the Cuban government to purchase essential medicines, medical equipment and supplies, food and agricultural products, construction materials and access to new technologies. The embargo also denies Cuban-Americans their right to travel freely to their country of origin. The embargo has been overwhelmingly rejected by the United Nations General Assembly for the past seventeen years.

The full statement appears below the fold.

***

It does not gainsay the importance of today's and Thursday's press conferences on the Senate and House bills to end all travel restrictions to note the more immediate consequence of this paragraph in yesterday's Washington Post story:

"Although the decision is not yet final, Obama is expected to further loosen remaining travel restrictions for all Americans by the time he goes to the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, senior administration officials said. Such restrictions were first imposed in 1961 and have been progressively tightened since then*. Removing all sanctions requires congressional action, but one senior official said that Treasury has wide leeway to ease the licensing requirements that limit travel."

If this is a trial balloon, no doubt the Cuban American rejectionists and allies in the House and Senate are doing their best to shoot it down. Folks in Congress and among Obama's supporters who want the Administration to use its authority to open the door as wide as possible to people-to-people exchange should find a way to assure the "final decision" is favorable.

The simplest is by sending a message to Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, via her web page here. Personalize and expand this text:

As a first step to improve relations between the US and Cuba, the President should use his existing authority to provide general licenses for unlimited travel by Cuban Americans (as promised during the campaign) and for non-tourist people to people exchanges, including for educational, religious, humanitarian, cultural, and sports purposes.

Send a copy to Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20520, or by fax to 202-647-7095

If the Administration follows through, diverse non-tourist visits will take place in late spring and summer, contributing to mutual understanding and confidence building essential to successful bilateral negotiations, and energizing knowledgeable grass roots support for Congress to end all travel restrictions.

For a fuller account, read the just published newsletter of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development here.

*******
* In fact, President Carter ended all travel restrictions and President Clinton liberalized those reimposed by President Reagan.

The Senate unveiled its freedom to travel legislation in a well-attended press conference at noon today. According to the report in the Miami Herald, Senator Dorgan, the sponsor of the legislation, said it's long past time to change the policy:

Current U.S. policy ''has done nothing to weaken the Castro regime,'' said the bill's chief champion, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. ``It's long past the time to change this ill-advised policy.''

Some other stories:
http://talkradionews.com/2009/03/get-your-bags-packed-for-cuba/
http://www.reuters.com/article/joeBiden/idUSN3142346320090331
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46340