Raul Castro meets Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Trinidad hosts this month's Summit of the Americas.

There was much speculation in the past weeks about what was driving the major housecleaning of Cuban ministry heads last month. Some saw the move as a paranoid effort to centralize control. Some saw it as a militarization of the Cuban government.

This report from Reuters' Cuba correspondent Marc Frank seems to me to reveal the real reason: bureaucratic efficiency. It is clear that Raul is not yet the Deng Xiao-Ping of Cuba, and is even further from being the Gorbachev. What he is doing, though, is cutting out the sclerosis that has built up over the past few decades and streamlining and decentralizing the communist state. This is what Raul did when his brother handed the military large portions of the Cuban economy during the Special Period after the Soviet Union support disappeared, and this is what he is doing again.

But make no mistake, the Cuban government is and will be a communist state, with all that entails from low productivity, lack of property rights, and the restriction of liberty...but a communist state with a huge sense of national pride, with universal health care and 100 percent literacy.

We need to understand these simple realities for as Congress makes important steps toward lifting the ban on travel for all Americans to Cuba, the rationale cannot be about turning Cuba into a tropical Jeffersonian democracy--any time soon. Rather, a progressive, realistic rationale for changing the policy is three-fold: one, the old strategy of isolation has failed and two, the embargo is a disproportionate and indiscriminate sanction on a non-threatening state, and three, that the real interest of the United States is not about Cuba per se, but that the embargo is an obstacle to full and productive re-engagement with the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

This, as my colleague Phil Peters points out, is what President Obama will hear in spades at the Summit of the Americas later this month.

Reps. Delahunt, Flake, and McGovern (photo credit: The Washington Post)

It's been a bad few weeks for Senator Menendez.

First Senator Lugar releases a report calling for a sea change in U.S.-Cuba relations. Then the Congress passes and the president signs legislation easing travel restrictions on Cuban Americans and easing the payment process for agricultural exports to Cuba. Then, this week, Senators Dorgan and Enzi announce their legislation to end the travel ban to Cuba so that all Americans can travel freely to the island.

Then today, The Washington Post reports that Senator Lugar released a letter sent directly to the President calling for direct talks with Cuba. Here's the money quote:

"...I ask that you also consider the designation of a special envoy for Cuba who would report directly to Secretary of State Clinton....This Special Envoy's responsibilities would begin with the initiation of direct talks with the Cuban Government..."

And the House, in a few moments, is set to announce its companion legislation to end the travel ban.

For those interested, Representatives Delahunt and Flake will be holding a press conference today with leading Cuban Americans who are supporting their legislation. Whereas the Senate showed strong farm state and business support for the bill, Representative Delahunt has reached out to leading Cuban Americans, who are also calling for an end to the travel ban and an end to the embargo.

The speakers will be: Reps Delahunt (D), Flake (R), Emerson (R), McGovern (D), DeLauro (D), Snyder (D), Berry (D), Chaffetz (R), Donna Edwards (D) and Barbara Lee (D). In addition, I heard that Representative Delahunt plans to place a call to a human rights activist in Havana who wanted her voice to be heard supporting the change that this kind of legislation represents.

The location of the press conference, for those of you in the neighborhood, is Rayburn 2255 at 11am today.

Below the fold, you can find the statement by Miriam Leiva and Oscar Espinoza Chepe, two human rights activists in Havana who understand that continuing the failed policy of isolation will not further the cause of human rights and freedom in Cuba.

Amnesty International agrees with them.

The list of outside supporters of this legislation is impressive. Click here to see the full list of statements of support.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops is also backing the legislation.

Poor Senator Menendez. It's not all gloom, though. On the bright side, playing a major role keeping U.S. policy static on any issue for 50 years is quite an accomplishment.

Now it's time to move on.

A disturbing article from the Trinidad Express (available here) about the US take on Cuba's relationship to the Summit of the Americas was posted on Friday on the Miami Herald web site.

I am hoping that former ambassador to Venezuela Jeff Davidow who is coordinating our government's preparations was misquoted or misconstrued, and that this Administration is not still living in a state of denial:

"We do not believe that Cuba is a topic of discussion at this summit,..The policy of the United States on Cuba is that we hope that the Cuban people will someday be able to share the same kind of democracy that the people of Trinidad have,..Obviously, Trinidad is free to work on its own relationship with Cuba as all countries are. However, I think it would be very unfortunate if the topic of Cuba were to become the principal issue at this summit and detract attention from the other important things you and I have been talking about -energy, poverty, crime...We do not believe that Cuba should be at the summit because the summit is for the community of democratically elected heads of state. I don't think anybody in Trinidad would argue that Raul Castro was democratically elected."

Leaving aside the reality that Cuba has something important to contribute to the three topics Davidow cites, Vice President Biden claimed in Chile that, "the time of the United States dictating unilaterally, the time where we only talk and don't listen is over". How then can we peremptorily rule off the agenda a problem that everyone else in the Hemisphere believes is the principle obstacle to the US regaining a positive role?

The Obama Administration's commitment to listening is hollow and risks becoming a new form of Bush style patronizing if we are tone deaf to what everyone is saying and continue to be self-righteous and insular about the superiority of our political ideology.

Press reports on Friday are to be warmly welcomed that President Obama will fulfill his campaign commitment to unlimited Cuban American travel and remittances, but that is not sufficient for the Summit. As Brazil's Foreign Minister told the Washington Post in preparation for the meeting between Presidents Lula and Obama:

"I think we would certainly encourage dialogue, encourage the end of isolation," Amorim said, adding that ending restrictions on travel and sending money back to Cuba would not be enough. "I think something bigger has to be done," he said.

As I wrote here earlier in the week, should the President open non-tourist travel to Cuba, as predicted in the Washington Post on Monday, that would help create a positive atmosphere for the Summit, as well as be an essential step toward Congress restoring a fundamental human right at home.

A more direct way for the President to address the strong demand that we end our embargo is to also announce a hurricane relief related six month humanitarian suspension of the embargo to enable sale and donation of construction and agricultural supplies and equipment.

--John McAuliff

The exclusion of Cuba from the Fifth Summit of the Americas is not helpful in achieving improved respect for human rights in Cuba.... The absence of Cuba, the only country to be excluded, will diminish attempts to find regional solutions to regional problems. --Amnesty International (full statement here)

**************

Two compelling essays raise harder questions that need to find their place on the Obama agenda:

Attorney José Pertierra cites a 1979 precedent of mutual gestures leading to the release of prisoners held by the US and Cuba that offers a model to bring humanitarian relief to the Cuban 5 and the Black Spring 54. His article appears in the current issue of Progresso Weekly, which is also a good source of insight into Cuba's discussion of reform.

A new book from the very mainstream Brookings Foundation, The Obama Administration and the Americas, features a chapter on historical, legal and political reasons for return of the Guantanamo Bay territory to Cuban sovereignty. It can be ordered here.

Reps. Lee and Rush discuss U.S. policy towards Cuba in Havana (photo: Reuters)

Politics is theater, so they say. This weekend's visit of a delegation of Congressional Black Caucus members to Cuba to meet with high-level Cuban officials, demonstrates this truism with gusto.

At both a formal press conference in Havana and at an impromptu presser at the statue honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the CBC delegation has been out in front setting down markers that demonstrate, if nothing else, that the mood in Washington towards changing our policy in Cuba has changed dramatically.

The prescription, however, for full normalization and then talks makes little sense, to me, however. That's because I value a different set of interests than those of the CBC delegation seems to be prioritizing.

My sense is that most compelling national interest the United States has vis-a-vis Cuba is ending the black eye and hemispheric road block that the embargo represents. We need to improve our relations with Latin America and our image in the world and the Obama administration's maintenance of the embargo is sending the opposite message. Then there are trade interests, then humanitarian interests, then democracy and human rights. I sequence issues that way because after fifty years of embargo and covert games, the democracy and human rights situation has yet to improve and I want us to try engagement as a strategy.

But not full normalization. The United States needs to take steps to unwind the embargo while establishing useful dialogues on issues of mutual concern. That process of normalization without the embargo may legitimately take a long time, but it is against our interests to let Cuba dictate when we end get rid of the global black eye and regional road block.

My two cents.

Photo credit: The Washington Post

Here’s what President Obama said today, in an address before the Turkish Parliament, about how Turkey became a democracy:

“At the end of World War I, Turkey could have succumbed to the foreign powers that were trying to claim its territory, or sought to restore an ancient empire. But Turkey chose a different future. You freed yourself from foreign control, and you founded a republic that commands the respect of the United States and the wider world.

“And there is a simple truth to this story: Turkey's democracy is your own achievement. It was not forced upon you by any outside power, nor did it come without struggle and sacrifice. Turkey draws strength from both the successes of the past, and from the efforts of each generation of Turks that makes new progress for your people.”

Now, if President Obama applied the same framework to our Cuba policy, wouldn’t he end the embargo, cease funding U.S. AID programs geared toward regime change, acknowledge Cuba’s journey from domination by foreign powers, and entrust Cuba’s political future to the goals and aspirations of Cuba’s people?

Question for the President’s foreign policy team: Do the Europe and Western Hemisphere guys ever talk to each other? Just asking.

-- Sarah Stephens

Seven U.S. Congressmen are in Havana and met with Cuban President Raul Castro among other leading Cuban politicians.

What I found most interesting in the Associated Press report on their trip was a comment made by Representative Mel Watt about something he had read of Fidel Castro's.

From the AP article:

Lawmakers in both houses of the U.S. Congress have proposed a measure that would prohibit the president from barring Americans from traveling to Cuba except in extreme cases, effectively lifting a travel ban that is a key component of the embargo.

[Barbara] Lee has said that many of the representatives, who arrived in Cuba on Friday and are scheduled to leave Tuesday, support the travel legislation.

Democratic Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina said Monday that Fidel Castro's column made it "clear that both countries can exist without either dialogue or adversity to each other."

"But wouldn't it be so wonderful," he added, "if we struck a dialogue and found the things that were mutually advantageous and mutually of interest to our two countries and stopped the historical divisions that have separated us (though we are) so close geographically?"

This reminds me of General Brent Scowcroft's comment to me some time ago in a short interview he gave me at the time I was helping to organize a book on US foreign policy by Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Washington Post national security columnist David Ignatius.

Scowcroft said:

My answer on Cuba is Cuba is not a foreign policy question.

Cuba is a domestic issue.

In foreign policy, the embargo makes no sense.

It doesn't do anything.

It's quite clear we can not starve Cuba to death.

We learned that when the Soviet stopped subsidizing Cuba and they didn't collapse.

It's a domestic issue.

I think it's time to realize that we need to move Cuba out of the domestic political box back into the geostrategic context where it belongs.

-- Steve Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Marc A. Thiessen's op-ed in the 6 April Washington Post, "The Embargo After the Castros", reads like the plaintive cry of a man who, because he can't conjure up any defense against the wave of history that is about to topple him, seeks to have a deus ex machina pluck him from the wave's path at the final moment. But such gods as Jesse Helms, Thiessen's boss in the long-ago, are dead and though their ghosts may prowl the earth, dei ex machina they aren’t. Besides, Helms and his gang did more damage in their time to U.S. foreign policy than anyone since Senators Joseph McCarthy and William Jenner and their infamous red scare during the early days of the Cold War. But democracy is self-correcting and, largely, the amelioration has set in—particularly with the election to the presidency of Barak Obama.

But back to Cuba.

In his op-ed, Mr. Thiessen cites a meeting he and Roger Noriega had with Ricardo Alarcón in 1998. Mr. Thiessen revels in what apparently was his and Mr. Noriega's personal epiphany that Mr. Alarcón was no different from any of the leaders in the U.S. Congress. That is to say, he was possessed of personal ambition and he let that ambition at times cloud his perspective of the Cuban peoples' genuine interests. With respect to Mr. Thiessen’s specific epiphany, Alarcón allegedly provided brilliant insights about the questionable staying power of one Raúl Castro, now at least the titular head of the Cuban leadership. From this seminal meeting, Thiessen concludes: "Raúl Castro's position as Fidel's successor is by no means assured." BFO for Marc and Roger.

Blinding flash of the obvious (BFO) because no almost 80 year-old man's position is assured for long. In fact, it is one of the few verities about the Cuban leadership: Raúl and Fidel will pass from the scene—and sooner, not later. Death happens.

If Raúl (or perhaps Fidel even) dies before the U.S. has begun to change its policies toward Cuba—principally to demonstrate that it is the Cuban people who should handle the transition and not the U.S. or any other outside force—we will have missed a golden opportunity to impact the transition that will then occur. Moreover, and more seriously, we will have missed the chance to affect major and positive change in our relations with the rest of our hemisphere, from Buenos Aires to Ottawa.

But Mr. Thiessen's true stroke of Helms-like genius comes when he attacks those who want to see the embargo on Cuba lifted and relations between the U.S. and the island normalized. Mr. Thiessen writes: "Set aside questions about the embargo's efficacy. Like it or not, it is our only leverage, aside from our military, to affect the transition in Cuba." In one fell swoop, Mr. Thiessen reveals the emptiness of his thinking.

Set aside questions about the embargo's efficacy? Hamlet may as well set aside questions about his father's murder. The embargo is an utter failure at great cost to the people of Cuba and to the people of America.

This is what the present movement to change policy is all about. From this clearly demonstrated fact does the effort to restore sanity to U.S. Cuba policy draw its strength. One cannot set aside questions about the embargo's efficacy because the embargo is U.S. policy. The embargo is an abject failure; ergo, U.S. policy is an abject failure. Normally, this is incentive to change. “Normally” apparently doesn’t hold water for Mr. Thiessen.

Couched in Mr. Thiessen's illogic is another absurdity as well: "aside from our military", he writes. Can we imagine any person so foolish as to contemplate the "no options are off the table" version of diplomacy vis a vis Cuba? Using the Armed Forces of the United States against a country whose chief foreign policy today is sending doctors and medical technicians to the world's ghettoes?

And there are dozens of ways to affect Cuba's transition; in fact, one could argue that there are millions of ways. Because every American citizen traveling to Cuba is a way to affect Cuba's transition. There is no better emissary for democracy than a free citizen.

Moreover, simply recognizing that it will be up to the Cuban people ultimately to decide what type of government they desire following the departure of the Castros from the scene, will generate a new momentum for change. Imagine, if you will, a hemisphere where the U.S. is respected and admired again rather than disparaged and reviled, where leaders such as Brazil's Lula and Argentina's Kirchner can look forward to working with Washington on real challenges such as trade, climate change, illicit drugs, growing crime and human trafficking, environmental protection, finding and developing new energy sources, managing diminishing water resources, HIV/AIDS, and the many other problems we all increasingly confront.

As President Obama said recently in Turkey: "This much is certain: no one nation can confront [such] challenges alone, and all nations have a stake in overcoming them. That is why we must listen to one another, and seek common ground. That is why we must build on our mutual interests, and rise above our differences. We are stronger when we act together. That is the message that I have carried with me throughout this trip to Europe. That will be the approach of the United States of America going forward."

Jesse Helms, eat your heart out. Your demonic dreams for American hegemony are being defeated by what you most loathed—the growing understanding that if we don't hang together in this world we are most surely going to hang alone.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson

Latin America policy uber diva Julia Sweig chaired a news-making gathering at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington yesterday morning. It was excellent, and the CFR has audio of the entire event here.

In response to a question I posed to Sweig's panel, Obama administration Summit of the Americas point man Jeffrey Davidow fell back on droopy anachronisms while Foreign Policy magazine blogger and best-selling writer and geostrategic interpreter David Rothkopf hit the ball out of the park with his statement:

"US-Cuba policy is the Edsel of American foreign policy."

After Davidow successfully avoided mentioning the word "Cuba" in his primary remarks on the Obama administration's game plan for the Summit of the Americas, the former US Ambassador to Mexico finally offered in his penultimate exhale an acknowledgement that "Cuba might come up" in the meeting.

And then he finished stating that other "flamboyant personalities may 'flambay'" -- a clear nod to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

When I had a chance to pose a question, I pressed Davidow pretty hard on what he tried to avoid.

The exchange between Ambassador Davidow, David Rothkopf, and myself follows below.

What is interesting and disconcerting is that Barack Obama's point guy on this upcoming Summit gave the unreconstructed, neoconservative-friendly, ideologically vapid, 'unchastened by five decades of embargo failure' answer to my question on Cuba.

Has Obama read the brief that his people are preparing for him on Cuba?

Davidow embraced one of the worst single editorials I have read in years in the Washington Post titled "Coddling Cuba."

And Rothkopf did his part to say that on US-Cuba policy, the American position has no clothes -- and has become completely illegitimate in the eyes of the world and undermines America's own, parochial national interests.

Here is the exchange in full between Sweig, Davidow, Rothkopf, and myself:

Council on Foreign Relations - Washington, DC April 9, 2009

Perspectives on the Fifth Summit of the Americas: Cooperation on Development, Energy, and the Environment

Speakers:
Jeffrey Davidow, White House Adviser for the Summit of the Americas
Luis Alberto Moreno, President, Inter-American Development Bank
David J. Rothkopf, President and CEO, Garten Rothkopf

Presider:
Julia E. Sweig, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Partial Transcript of Q&A Exchange

STEVE CLEMONS, Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and Publisher, The Washington Note

I would like to just start with what David Rothkopf said about the Cuban embargo, "the beginning of the end" and ask Ambassador Davidow if you would agree with David's perspective on that, or perhaps his assertion.

It's very odd right now when one looks at Senator Richard Lugar and his statements on Cuba that seem to be running politically left of the President. Brent Scowcroft has said recently that Cuba makes no sense at all as a foreign policy problem. Russia's lack of patronage of Cuba has shown that we can't starve Cuba.

So, part of the question is if Barack Obama is the change agent he said, is Cuba more than Cuba? Is it a place where the steps you take there are so symbolic that they can have echo effects geostrategically on other parts of the world?

Or are we leaving this in the same arena where Senator Martinez and others would like to have it which is we are going to create opportunities for a class of ethnic Americans but not look at the broader geostrategic equation?

JULIA SWEIG, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Ambassador Davidow? It's the "four letter word" - not Peru - that you are asked to address now.

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY DAVIDOW, White House Adviser for the Summit of the Americas

I will try to answer that question. . .

JULIA SWEIG, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

And other panelists can chime in . . .

AMBASSADOR JEFFREY DAVIDOW

Yes, why don't they!

Look it's obviously a highly contentious issue. From my perspective, a few points to make.

From my perspective, I think it would be unfortunate to lose the opportunity for this hemisphere, at the beginning of the Obama administration, to set down some guidelines and make some progress jointly by getting distracted by the Cuban issue.

Cuba is not an issue for discussion at the Summit if one reads the Summit declaration and the documents on all the past year of negotiation. However, having said that, and given what we are reading in the press, it is probable that it will come up in some way.

The one point that I would respond to in Steve's question specifically is, "Is Cuba something larger than itself?" and the answer is 'yes, it is'.

And I think that whatever the reasons have been in the 1960s for initiation of elements of our Cuban policy, the fact is in today's Hemisphere, Cuba is the odd man out.

Keep in mind that this meeting in Trinidad is a meeting of 34 democratic states.

If we had been talking about a meeting of the hemisphere as little as twenty years ago, it would have been cast in a different light.

There has been a remarkable historical transformation in this hemisphere, and a laudable one, toward democratically elected governments.

We may have difficulty with some of the governments that have been democratically elected, of course, but this Summit is a reunion of countries and presidents, every one of which has been elected by their populations.

There is not one government represented at this Summit whose population would willingly accept the kind of restrictions on their civil, political and human rights that are commonplace in Cuba - and that remain commonplace.

So, I think as we talk about Cuba and talk about how we as a government deal with it and so forth, let's keep in mind that it is something larger than itself, it is in a way a memory of that which existed in the past and a caution of what may exist in the future unless we are totally committed to the question of democracy, human rights and representation of people.

And lest you think, and I'm sure some of you do, that I am some sort of ideologue on this, take a look at the lead editorial in today's Washington Post. Maybe you think they are a bunch of ideologues as well, but I think they say it much better than I do.

So, we have been struggling with Cuba as a nation for close to half a century and there is a real focus on what we should be doing, but to answer the question, it is an important place beyond a small island 90 miles off our shore

DAVID J. ROTHKOPF, President and CEO, Garten Rothkopf

If I may make a couple of brief comments on this- and I am unconstrained by affiliation with the United States government right now - so perhaps they will be in a slightly different direction.

The editorial in today's Washington Post was absurd.

The position of the Florida contingent on this is Paleolithic.

The policy is indefensible on any grounds,

The reality is that Cuba may be special, but you have to ask yourself why it's therefore easier to travel to or do business with the Stalinist, nuclear weapon-toting North Koreans, or whether it's more comfortable for us to be totally economically integrated with the Saudi royal family and their depredations, or if we are concerned about human rights, why are we so integrated with and why are we the sole supporter of a government in Afghanistan that has just made rape in marriage legal and denies women the right to go outside without the approval of their husbands?

So this notion that some how democracy alone is the only criteria that we should use in defining the nature of relationship doesn't stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever, and the reality is that only one country that has successfully been isolated by this fifty year embargo, and that is the United States of America.

Our [US-Cuba] policy dates back to the Edsel.

It is the Edsel of American foreign policy.

[END]

David Rothkopf is absolutely right.

Barack Obama has given few indications thus far that he is willing to move a five decade failed relationship forward in a meaningful sense -- with the single exception that he may ironically codify "relaxation" for a class of ethnic Americans in a way that crudely discriminates against all other Americans.

We did not open Vietnam by relaxing travel and remittances for Vietnamese-Americans.

And Obama's team -- for all of the ballyhoo about democracy promotion -- is promoting a policy of the United States government that restricts the American right of free travel anywhere.

I thought that we lived in a real democracy -- and that it was supposed to be Communist governments -- not democracies -- that restricted the travel rights of their citizens.

President Obama is a busy man, but he better take a look at the brief that his team is preparing for him -- otherwise he'll learn too late that he's driving "an Edsel" to the Summit of the Americas.

-- Steve Clemons directs the foreign policy programs at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

This just in from CNN (Hat tip to DM):

Do Americans back a plan to relax some of the current restrictions on that island nation?

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday suggests the answer is yes. Nearly two thirds think the United States should lift its ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba. And seven in ten think it's time to re-establish diplomatic relations with that country.

"Republicans as well as Democrats favor re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "On the issue of lifting travel restrictions, Republicans are evenly divided, while Independents and Democrats support the change."

Click here for the full story.

With all that is at stake today, we cannot afford to talk past one another. We can’t afford to allow old differences to prevent us from making progress in areas of common concern. We can’t afford to let walls of mistrust stand. Instead, we have to find – and build on – our mutual interests. For it is only when people come together, and seek common ground, that some of that mistrust can begin to fade. And that is where progress begins.

--President Barack Obama, Weekly Address, Saturday, April 11, 2009

No question that President Obama is summoning our nation and the world to a higher standard. Can he now apply it close to home and reject advisers that for domestic political reasons put him in conflict with a powerful consensus among our neighbors about Cuba?

There is no real reason why President Obama cannot demonstrate that he is hearing US and Western Hemisphere opinion by walking the walk at the Summit of the Americas in these ways:

1) Use his authority to immediately grant general licenses for unlimited use by all 12 codified categories of non-tourist travel, including not only family but also for educational, religious, humanitarian, cultural and sports purposes

2) Indicate that he welcomes and will sign legislation from Congress to restore the right to travel of all Americans, while hoping that Cuba will do the same for its own people.

3) Announce that the US will dismantle the electronic billboard at the US Interests Section and support a reciprocal agreement for the Interest Sections in both countries to function in a more normal diplomatic fashion, including travel within the country and engaging in dialogue with a full range of official and unofficial persons while avoiding partisan intrusion in domestic affairs

4) Instruct the State Department to issue visas for Cubans wishing to visit the US for academic, cultural, professional and people to people dialogue purposes

5) Announce the appointment of a credible special representative such as Gov. Bill Richardson to begin high level discussions of available channels of practical cooperation and the resolution of all bilateral issues, including compensation for nationalized US property and the unilateral embargo

If the President wants to be truly bold he can:

1) Say the US has no objection to Cuba's participation in the Summit in whatever status is appropriate to its current non-membership in the OAS, a situation the US hopes will be soon addressed so the organization incorporates all countries in the Hemisphere on an equal basis.

2) Use his legal authority to partially lift the embargo for humanitarian reasons, allowing Cuba to purchase construction and agricultural supplies and equipment needed because of hurricane damage, and authorizing a general license for American organizations and individuals who wish to donate such supplies

3) Respond favorably to Raul Castro's suggestion of mutual gestures to resolve the problem of people imprisoned in each country which the other considers political (Cuban 5, Black Spring 54) [See Progresso Weekly article on the precedent for such gestures.]

4) Indicate that a review is taking place to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism

5) State that the return of the territory of Guantanamo Bay to Cuba is a legitimate topic for bilateral discussion

The New America Foundation/American Strategy Program
cordially invites you to a national policy forum:

IS IT TIME TO END THE COLD WAR IN LATIN AMERICA?
America's National Interests, The Summit of the Americas, and a New Look at US-Cuba Relations

TUESDAY, 14 APRIL 2009
8:30 am-10:30 am

NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
1899 L Street NW, 4th Floor Washington, DC
RSVP to Steve Clemons, clemons@newamerica.net

8:30am
REGISTRATION AND COFFEE

9:00am
WELCOMING REMARKS

STEVE COLL
President, New America Foundation
Former Managing Editor, Washington Post
Washington Staff Writer, The New Yorker

9:10 am
WHAT WOULD AN INTEREST-DRIVEN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE U.S. AND LATIN AMERICA LOOK LIKE IF IT EXISTED?
WHERE DO US-CUBA RELATIONS FIT IN?

WILLIAM REINSCH
President, National Foreign Trade Council
Former Under Secretary for Export Administration, Department of Commerce

CARL MEACHAM
Senior Policy Advisor for Latin America to Senator Richard Lugar
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

COL. LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON (USA, Ret)
Former Chief of Staff, Department of State
Chairman, US-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative, New America Foundation
Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor, College of William & Mary

MICHAEL LIND
Whitehead Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
Author, The American Way of Strategy: US Foreign and the American Way of Life
Former Executive Editor, The National Interest

JULIA SWEIG
Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies
and Director of Latin Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Author, Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century

DAVID ROTHKOPF
President & CEO, Garten Rothkopf
Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Author, Running the World: The Inside Story of the NSC and the Architects of American Power
National Security Blogger, Foreign Policy

TOM OMESTAD
Senior Writer & Diplomatic Correspondent, US News & World Report
Former Associate Editor, Foreign Policy

moderator and provocateur
STEVE CLEMONS
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

10:30 am
ADJOURNMENT

Yesterday, President Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs and National Security Council Director for Latin America Dan Restrepo unveiled the administration's pre-Summit of the Americas opening move on US-Cuba relations.

In the package, travel and remittance restrictions on Cuban-Americans are completely waived. Japanese-Americans, Scotch-Irish types, Jewish-Americans, non-Cuban descended African-Americans, non-Cuban descended Latinos, and those from Iceland who have naturalized as US citizens are not covered under the Obama plan -- along with a lot of other Americans.

Nonetheless, opening up travel and engagement for any group is some progress -- just not nearly enough.

Obama also eased humanitarian aid levels and perhaps most interestingly -- in a move that not only allows cell phone options for visiting Cuban Americans to Cuba but also matches a similar electronics liberalization step taken six months ago by Raul Castro -- the administration is allowing US telecommunications firms to work out communications deals and arrangements with Cuban firms. This is important because it will broaden the ability of Cubans themselves to communicate with the outside world and prevents a potential fiberoptic and communications monopoly from going to Venezuela.

Today at 9:00 am in Washington, DC, I will be chairing a morning conference on US-Cuba relations with a great panel of commentators who will be addressing the upcoming Summit of the Americas and US-Cuba relations.

This event will be "taped" by C-Span and air later -- but you can watch live on line here at The Washington Note.

Here is our morning schedule for the program, "Is It Time to End the Cold War in Latin America? America's National Interests, the Summit of the Americas, and a New Look at US-Cuba Relations"

9:00am
Welcoming Remarks

Steve Coll
President, New America Foundation
Former Managing Editor, Washington Post
Washington Staff Writer, The New Yorker

9:10 am
What Would an Interest-Driven Relationship Between the U.S. and Latin America Look Like if It Existed? Where do US-Cuba Relations Fit In?

Carl Meacham
Senior Policy Advisor for Latin America to Senator Richard Lugar
Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (USA, Ret)
Former Chief of Staff, Department of State
Chairman, US-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative, New America Foundation
Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor, College of William & Mary

Michael Lind
Whitehead Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
Author, The American Way of Strategy: US Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life
Former Executive Editor, The National Interest

Julia Sweig
Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies
and Director of Latin Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Author, Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century

David Rothkopf
President & CEO, Garten Rothkopf
Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Author, Running the World: The Inside Story of the NSC and the Architects of American Power
National Security Blogger, Foreign Policy

Tom Omestead
Senior Writer & Diplomatic Correspondent, US News & World Report
Former Associate Editor, Foreign Policy

The Hon. William A. Reinsch
President, National Foreign Trade Council
Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration

moderator and provocateur
Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

10:30 am
Adjournment

Should be an interesting session.

-- Steve Clemons

Yesterday, the New America Foundation and the National Security Network delivered the following letter to the White House, signed by some of the most respected former senior officers of the United States Armed Forces.

In the document pasted above and offered in text below, these senior officers urge the President to go beyond his initial statement, issued yesterday, repeal the full travel ban on all Americans and engage the Cuban government in dialogue on key bi-lateral security issues.

From:
General James T. Hill (Ret.)
General Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.)
General Johnnie E. Wilson (Ret.)
Lieutenant General John G. Castellaw (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy (Ret.)
Major General Paul D. Eaton (Ret.)
Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter (Ret.)
Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Ret.)
Brigadier General John Adams (Ret.)
Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Ret.)

To:
The Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States

As former senior officers of the United States armed forces, we are writing today to encourage you to support the Congressional initiatives to end the ban on travel to Cuba for all Americans.

The current policy of isolating Cuba has failed, patently, to achieve our ends. Cuba ceased to be a military threat decades ago. At the same time, Cuba has intensified its global diplomatic and economic relations with nations as diverse as China, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, and members of the European Union. It is hard to characterize such global engagement as isolation.

Though economically weak, the Castro government has kept the broad support of its people by responding to economic shocks and providing universal access to health care and education. There will be no counter-revolution any time soon.
Instead, the current embargo serves more to prop up the Castro regime and shows no sign of triggering a popular uprising against the communist government it runs. When hard times fall on the Cuban people, inevitably, the Cuban government blames the U.S. ―bloqueo‖ for the suffering. And the people, with a strong sense of national sovereignty, rally to their flag.

Even worse, the embargo has inspired a significant diplomatic movement against U.S. policy. As military professionals, we understand that America's interests are best served when the United States is able to attract the support of other nations to our cause. When world leaders overwhelmingly cast their vote in the United Nations against the embargo and visit Havana to denounce American policy, it is time to change the policy, especially after 50 years of failure in attaining our goals.

The congressional initiative to lift the travel ban for all Americans is an important first step toward lifting the embargo, a policy more likely to bring change to Cuba. It begins to move the United States in an unambiguous direction toward the kind of policy--based on principled engagement and proportional and discriminate action that was the hallmark of your presidential campaign. Combined with renewed engagement with Havana on key security issues such as narcotics trafficking, immigration, airspace and Caribbean security, we believe the U.S. will be on a path to rid ourselves of the dysfunctional policy your administration has inherited.

It is a clear cut case. During the Cold War, the U.S. encouraged Americans to travel to the Soviet bloc resulting in more information, more contact, and more freedom for captive peoples, and ultimately the end of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War itself. This idea of engagement underlies our current policies toward Iran, Syria and North Korea all much graver concerns to the United States - where Americans are currently free to travel. By sending our best ambassadors--the American people--to engage their Cuban neighbors, we have a much better chance of influencing the eventual course of Cuban affairs. Broader economic engagement with the island through additional commercial and people-to-people contacts will in time promote a more pluralist and open society. And, by actually striking down an element of the embargo, that signal will be sent to the government in Havana.

Mr. President, around the world, leaders are calling for a real policy shift that delivers on the hope you inspired in your campaign. Cuba offers the lowest-hanging fruit for such a shift and would be a move that would register deeply in the minds of our partners and competitors around the world.

-- Patrick Doherty

President Obama gave an interview to CNN en Español last night which offers food for thought and hope:

Obama is to travel later in the week to the summit in Trinidad and Tobago for meetings with Latin American leaders.

He refused to criticize the leaders of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, who have taken measures to change their constitutions to extend their holds on power.

"I think it's important for the United States not to tell other countries how to structure their democratic practices and what should be contained in their constitutions," he said. "It's up to the people of those countries to make a decision about how they want to structure their affairs."

Obama offered no criticism when asked how he plans to interact with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce U.S. critic who once described President Bush as the "devil." "Look, he's the leader of his country, and he'll be one of many people that I will have an opportunity to meet," Obama said.

He said he believes the United States has a leadership role to play in the region, but he qualified that role this way: "We also recognize that other countries have important contributions and insights."

He added, "We want to listen and learn as well as talk, and that approach, I think, of mutual respect and finding common interests, is one that ultimately will serve everybody."

On Cuba, Obama -- who this week eased restrictions on travel and sending money to the island -- offered a prod and a carrot to Havana.

"What we're looking for is some signal that there are going to be changes in how Cuba operates that assures that political prisoners are released, that people can speak their minds freely, that they can travel, that they can write and attend church and do the things that people throughout the hemisphere can do and take for granted," he said.

"And if there is some sense of movement on those fronts in Cuba, then I think we can see a further thawing of relations and further changes."

I have bolded some words that might be productively applied to US attitudes about Cuba. Regarding President Obama's specific expectations of Havana, signals already abound:

1) According to human rights groups, political prisoners have been released steadily since Raul Castro became President, albeit not enough of them. The problem could be solved tomorrow if the US accepts Castro's suggestion of mutual gestures to release prisoners each country considers political (Cuban 5, Black Spring 54 and earlier victims), a precedent set by President Carter.

2) Cubans don't hesitate to speak their minds freely among colleagues, friends and family and with foreigners they trust. In the Raul era that has extended to more public forums, both official and unofficial. A prominent example is the speech by Eusebio Leal, Historian of the City of Havana, at the congress of the writers and artists union, UNEAC. (And remember the video of students vigorously questioning National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon.) As a prominent Cuban intellectual, Rafael Hernandez, told Progresso Weekly

Any relaxation of the relations between Cuba and the United States, any measure that tends to reduce or dismantle the external mechanisms of coercion favors policies that are more realistic, more convenient, more directed at benefiting the Cubans who live in Cuba and the ones who live outside Cuba. It seems to me unthinkable that, if a relaxation of the antagonism between Cuba and the U.S. occurs, it will not have an effect, because it creates a climate that is more favorable for all kinds of new policies.

3) One of the changes Cubans have called for publicly, from neighborhood meetings to national conferences, is their own freedom of travel, the end of exit visas, the so called white card. Action by Cuba's government on travel restrictions of all its citizens is the most direct and appropriate response to US changes in travel restrictions of all our citizens. (Vietnam did not abolish exit visas until after normalization with the US.)

4) I am not sure what kind of writing the President refers to, but attending church is a long established normal activity in Cuba. Holding a religious faith hasn't been an obstacle to Communist Party membership for years. (Cuba was ahead of Vietnam on that front.)

A Guest Post by Stan Katz
Orginally published on The Chronicle Review

The reaction to [Monday's] White House announcement of changes in our Cuba policy has been predictably mixed, and it easy to see why. President Obama has fulfilled his minimalist campaign promise to improve Cuban American access to Cuba, but he has not gone much further. The Obama administration claims to be “reaching out to the Cuban people,” but the new policy is essentially a restoration of Clinton-era Office of Foreign Assets and Control (OFAC) regulations permitting unlimited travel by family members to Cuba and removing the current restrictions on transfers of cash from Cuban-Americans to their families on the island. This is a sensible and welcome restoration of the status quo ante 2000.

The rationale is that “Cuban American connections to family in Cuba are not only a basic right in humanitarian terms, but our best tool for helping to foster the beginnings of grassroots democracy on the island. The logic of the “grassroots democracy” proposition escapes me. The White House also promises to authorize U.S. telecommunication network providers to negotiate with the Cubans to improve fiber-optic and satellite links between the two countries, and to provide roaming service agreements for cellphones with Cuban providers. These policies might improve communications with and within the island — if the Cubans want Americans to become their dominant international telecommunications provider, a doubtful proposition.

The problem for those of us who have been advocating a sweeping change in U.S. policies toward Cuba is that we think such improvements in the situation of Cuban Americans is only one among a host of desirable changes. Many of us (myself for sure) hope for the repeal of the embargo legislation, or at least the total revocation of OFAC regulations limiting travel to Cuba. I am sure that there are many domestic political factors that deter the President from taking bigger steps at this time (one of them is spelled “M-e-n-e-n-d-e-z”), but Obama carried Florida (not to mention New Jersey), and we looked for something bolder, especially as the President sets off for his first regional meeting with our Caribbean neighbors. Yesterday’s announcement is not what they are looking for, either, I would guess. Indeed, given what is happening in Central and Latin America these days, and given our disastrous neglect of the region under Bush II, this seems an opportunity missed.

I have been working with Cubans and Cuban organizations since 1997, with increasing difficulty and decreasing scope of opportunity, as the policies of both countries narrowed the options for cultural, academic and intellectual exchange. I am an unreconstructed admirer of the late Senator William J. Fulbright’s belief that bi-national cultural exchange is one of the most promising routes to international peace and understanding. There are still useful things we can do in Cuba. Faculty and graduate students can travel to do research, and undergraduates can enroll in Cuban universities (so long as they enroll for at least 10 weeks). My colleagues and I have organized a Woodrow Wilson School undergraduate policy task force at the University of Havana for next spring, for instance. But we could all do much more, and in so doing we would be both reversing 50 years of a failed policy and making a new beginning in the always troubled relationship between ourselves and the Cuban people. Can’t we do better, Mr. Obama?

Stan Katz teaches public and international affairs and directs the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is a past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for Legal History. Reprinted here with permission from the author.

Presidents Obama and Calderon

Are we there yet, as our kids (at an earlier age) might ask?

Let's just say that Barack Obama and Raul Castro are laying the groundwork for something positive to happen, perhaps as early as the Summit session tomorrow.

An AP story reported major progress (as a later story, excerpted below the fold, dramatically updated)

MEXICO CITY ­ The new presidents of the United States and Cuba, in a surprisingly direct exchange, appeared to open the door Thursday for negotiations toward a new relationship between the two countries divided by 90 miles of water and 50 years of cold war.

After removing some of the restrictions that lock Americans and their money out of Cuba in what he called a show of good faith, Barack Obama said Thursday that it was up to Havana to take the next step.

Within hours, Raul Castro replied from a summit in Venezuela: "We have sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything ­ human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything."

That was the boldest and most conciliatory language Castro or his brother Fidel ­ who handed him the presidency a year ago after falling ill ­ have used with any U.S. administration since that of Dwight D. Eisenhower in early 1961, when the nations broke off relations. It appeared to be a transcendent development, the best opportunity for talks in a half-century....

"We're willing to sit down to talk as it should be done, whenever," he said, while also condemning decades of efforts by Washington to undermine the Cuban government. "What's going on is that now ... whoever says anything, they immediately start (talking about) democracy, freedom, prisoners."

...Raul Castro said his only conditions for talks now are that Washington treat them as a conversation between equals and respect "the Cuban people's right to self-determination."

The AP story includes a reference to Castro's offer of mutual gestures for the release of prisoners. It's not a direct quote, but perhaps the topic was mentioned on background.

The full story is here.

As interesting is the full text of press conference answers about Cuba by Presidents Obama and Calderon here.

Notable is that President Obama did not repeat the Bush-light democracy lecture that dominated the Gibbs/Restrepo press briefing. Rather he simply said the new policy was a "a good-faith effort, a show of good faith on the part of the United States that we want to recast our relationship" and focused on the benefit to Cuban Americans and their family members.

But we do expect that Cuba will send signals that they're interested in liberalizing in such a way that not only do U.S.-Cuban relations improve, but so that the energy and creativity and initiative of the Cuban people can potentially be released.

We talk about the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba, but there's not much discussion of the ban on Cuban people traveling elsewhere and the severe restrictions that they're under. I make that point only to suggest that there are a range of steps that could be taken on the part of the Cuban government that would start to show that they want to move beyond the patterns of the last 50 years.

Interestingly, the only concrete illustration Obama gave is exactly the reform Cubans themselves have openly debated and the government has been rumored to be on the verge of making.

I'm optimistic that progress can be made if there is a spirit that is looking forward rather than backward....What I do insist on is that U.S.-Cuban relationships are grounded with a respect not only for the traditions of each country but also respect for human rights and the people's -- the needs of the people of Cuba. And so I hope that the signal I've sent here is, is that we are not trying to be heavy-handed. We want to be open to engagement. But we're going to do so in a systematic way that keeps focus on the hardships and struggles that many Cubans are still going through.

"Hardships", dare we hope like those produced by three hurricanes?

Last month when the Omnibus legislation passed, the media said the Cuba provisions were a major change in U.S. Policy. In reality, however, it was a very small move compared to the scale and disproportionality of the U.S. embargo.

Last week when Dan Restreppo and Robert Gibbs announced that the President would keep his campaign promises on Cuba, the media said it was the biggest change in Cuba policy in decades. In reality it was also a small gesture.

In Trinidad on Saturday, however, President Barack Obama said this:

I do believe that the signals sent so far provide at least an opportunity for frank dialogue on a range of issues, including critical areas of democracy and human rights throughout the hemisphere.

Now we're talking, or, at least, we're about to.

MADRID (AFP)--The U.S. shouldn't wait for Cuba to take the next step in efforts to bring an end to their half-century of feuding, Brazil's president said in a interview published here Sunday. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the ABC daily that U.S. counterpart Barack Obama's decision to lift some of the sanctions against Havana were "a first step in the right direction, but just the beginning." "It is important not to wait for a gesture from Cuba for other steps to be taken," Lula said

One could see the good atmosphere as utilizing the Summit to lay the groundwork of overwhelming international support for a fundamental change in US policy or as damage control, to minimize the visibility of US isolation about Cuba. Maybe it was both.

Certainly the event unleashed a lot of anticipation in the media and the general public and, intended or not, may prove to be the turning point.

The President's opening statement provided a remarkable parameter:

I think it's important to recognize, given historic suspicions, that the United States' policy should not be interference in other countries

and his post Summit press conference was also a dramatic and welcome departure from the past

as a starting point, it's important for us not to think that completely ignoring Cuba is somehow going to change policy, and the fact that you had Raul Castro say he's willing to have his government discuss with ours not just issues of lifting the embargo, but issues of human rights, political prisoners, that's a sign of progress.

And so we're going to explore and see if we can make some further steps. There are some things that the Cuban government could do. They could release political prisoners. They could reduce charges on remittances to match up with the policies that we have put in place to allow Cuban American families to send remittances. It turns out that Cuba charges an awful lot, they take a lot off the top. That would be an example of cooperation where both governments are working to help Cuban families and raise standards of living in Cuba.

Significantly prisoner releases and remittance costs are eminently solvable problems with good will and trust on both sides, the former through "mutual gestures" involving the Cuban 5, the latter by ending US interference in Cuba's international dollar transactions.

However, subsequent comments from Administration officials were not helpful, especially a Meet the Press appearance by Larry Summers.

Q. Under what circumstances would President Obama lift the 47-year-old embargo?
A: That's way down the road, and it's going to depend on what Cuba did--Cuba does going forward. … Cuba's known what it needs to do for a very long time and it's up to them in terms of their policies, their democratization, all of the steps that they can take.

In general Summers, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and Summit adviser Jeff Davidow appear to have been marching to a different drum of old style conditionality.

Principle adviser David Axelrod on Face the Nation seemed on the same page as the President conceptually but was badly misinformed about the remittance issue. His source may have been Sen. Menendez who accused Cuba of “taking 30 percent”. [The truth is that 20% is charged for every dollar exchange to Cuba’s CUC, whether from remittances or tourist expenditures, half being a fee applied to all foreign currencies, and half being Cuba’s response to a Bush OFAC effort to block their access to international dollar markets.]

Good cop, bad cop? Covering their political backside? Internal conflict?

I well remember when those two small, unarmed planes doing nothing more than dropping pamphlets were shot down by the Castro regime. And I believed then, and I think you said it well today, it was done to prevent us opening. But it was also an act of such aggression and violence that you can’t let it go unanswered, either. So this is a difficult calculation. Our goal is for a free, independent democracy that gives the people of Cuba a chance to have the same opportunities that their sisters and brothers and cousins and my sister-in-law, who came to this country from Cuba, that they have in our country.

--Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in testimony at the House Foreign Affairs Committee

The burden of Secretary Clinton's testimony, beyond the obligatory negative rhetoric about Cuba, was actually helpful, as I will explore in another post. However, since the above statement has become one of the unquestioned verities of US political discourse about Cuba, I wanted to share a response by Leonard Weinglass that he sent to Jane Franklin.

Personally I think shooting down the planes was a terrible act by Cuba, a disproportionate response to unquestionably illegal activity. I don't know whether there was an alternative of forcing down the the planes, as I assume would be the US action in such a circumstance, and what the result would have been over open water.

However, my concern is the lesson being drawn from a debatable interpretation of events and motives. I do not buy the argument that Cuba acted to prevent an opening by the Clinton Administration. Rather, I believe the Cubans fell into a deliberately provocative trap set by Miami hard liners. Havana responding forcefully to repeated violations of national sovereignty would undermine pro-normalization opinion in the Administration and facilitate passage of Helms-Burton which was designed to block Executive flexibility toward Cuba. I don't imagine that the leaders and sponsors of Brothers to the Rescue intended such a tragic end to their adventurism, but they did achieve their goal in Washington and certainly bear some of the responsibility.

While one can appreciate the short term domestic political utility of the theme that we will end travel restrictions and the embargo because those evil Castros really don't want us to, it is risky to base policy on an illusion.

Weinglass offers (below the break) a lawyer's brief in a clever fashion. A contemporary article from Time magazine provides some perspective on the Brothers saga and reveals the problematic role of Secretary Clinton's sister-in-law.

Speaking before the US House of Representatives' Comittee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, General Barry McCaffrey, former commander, US Southern Command, called on the US to do three things:

1. Lift the embargo and let all US citizens travel to the island; 2. Formalize coordination on law enforcement efforts to stem narcotics and human trafficking; 3. End opposition to Cuban participation in regional intergovernmental fora, such as the Organization of American States.

General McCaffrey said that though he welcomes President Obama's initiatives so far on Cuba policy, he believes it is time for more "dramatic and sudden" initiatives toward Cuba.

General McCaffrey's comments come two weeks after he joined twelve other retired senior military officers to urge President Obama to embrace efforts to end the travel ban to Cuba and engage the Cuban government on important, shared regional security issues.

The importance of the General's call to end the embargo is hard to understate. The momentum is building to decisively shift US policy toward Cuba - away from fifty years of failure. President Obama's openness to exploring talks has moved the debate forward and Congress is picking it up and running with it.

Peter Yarrow, John McAuliff and then Prime Minister Phan Van Khai

On April 30, 1975, I arrived in Hanoi for the first of over fifty visits. Literally as the last US ambassador closed one door in South Vietnam, I and four other American peace activists opened another in the soon to be reunified country.

The experience of the next two weeks in northern Vietnam, and a first visit to Ho Chi Minh City three years later, both made on behalf of the Quaker led American Friends Service Committee, focused my next twenty years on overcoming the legacies of the war.

I discovered that for southern and central Vietnamese, peace was liberation for many, occupation for some. The immense human cost of war was replaced by the lesser but still real suffering of reeducation camps, dispossession and exile.

Both countries wasted precious opportunities to quickly heal the physical and psychic wounds of war. Vietnam rebuffed an early Carter Administration effort through the Woodcock Commission to normalize relations and end our embargo because its leaders felt the US was obliged to fulfill its Paris Peace Agreement commitment of reconstruction aid. Later the Carter Administration rebuffed Vietnam’s readiness to normalize because it interfered with the strategy to align with China against the Soviet Union.

Although there were positive initiatives during the Reagan and Bush I administrations, the primary result was a lost decade and a half. Bill Clinton, with the help of Vietnam veteran Senators Kerry and McCain, rapidly transformed the bilateral relationship. (A tragic byproduct of the delay was a decade of civil war in Cambodia in which the US and China sided with the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to try to unseat the government and undermine the economic infrastructure that were being rebuilt with Vietnamese and Soviet assistance.)

As I worked with US educational institutions, foundations and non-governmental organizations to lay the private groundwork for bilateral official reconciliation, I witnessed (and may have assisted at the edges) Vietnam to transform itself economically and socially. Experimental steps in provision of land to those who farmed it and a family-based economy of manufacturing and trade, enabled the country to evolve from near famine and rationed poverty into food exporter, and one of the most robust economies and stable societies of Southeast Asia. The process of economic reform accelerated dramatically when the US embargo ended. Today we are Vietnam’s largest trading partner, a leading foreign investor, and the biggest source of tourists after adjacent China.

I encourage everyone to read Julia Sweig's latest article that is coming out this weekend in the Outlook section of the Washington Post.

Julia, the diva of Latin America policy, has been visiting Cuba for more than 25 years (which of course makes her first trip at the tender age of four) and knows the people and the policies better than just about anyone in this town.

In this piece, entitled, Give Guantanamo Back, Julia sets her sights on the U.S. military base that is now synonymous with torture but which for the last 50 years has been the location of the most frequent and meaningful official engagement between the United States and Cuba.

At the invitation of the U.S. Southern Command Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, Julia went down to, as she writes, see what was happening at the base beyond the detainee facility (which she visited as well) and begin to imagine what might be possible with this extraordinary piece of property.

President Obama, of course, has promised to close Guantanamo's detainee facility by January of next year. What will happen to the base? Sweig thinks it's a good place to create a new hemispheric public health institution--a great idea made all the more relevant with the current outbreak of swine flu.

Will it happen any time soon? Don't hold your breath. But with serious people like Admiral Stavridis' predecessor General Barry McCaffrey calling for an outright end to the embargo, it may happen sooner than you think.