Helene Cooper, writing in this Sunday’s New York Times Week In Review, looks at the question of past presidents talking to our international adversaries. In short, Cooper concludes that “The U.S. didn’t talk to Castro, but it did talk to Mao, and that is the path most taken.â€Â

I actually find this article a bit misleading, at least as far as the Cuba policy implications go. My program at the New America Foundation is making the case that it is time to change U.S. policy on Cuba. That’s because once Cuba stabilized and reoriented itself to the post-Cold War world, the embargo ceased being an effective tool of policy, and instead has been a net positive for the Castro governments.

Unlike the situation with Iran, to get a better Cuba policy the next President of the United States really does not need a summit with Raul Castro. The argument for changing Cuba policy is independent of Havana’s action. Our existing policy is the biggest obstacle we face to a better outcome in Cuba.

Sure, it would be a good thing to re-establish diplomatic relations, but to change our policy, end the embargo and ease the severe and unconstitutional restrictions on the travel of American citizens, the White House just needs to talk to the folks at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

This is not rocket science. Changing the dysfunctional set of statutes, executive orders and administrative rules that comprise our current Cuba policy would, I believe, make life harder for Havana. By removing the embargo -- and our tacit support for anti-Castro paramilitaries in South Florida -- from the Castro government’s list of excuses why their economy is underperforming, or why Cubans need to maintain solidarity with the Revolution, the United States would be presenting Havana with a major internal challenge.

Of course, for that same reason, a full, unilateral policy change could end badly for U.S.-Cuban relations. This I want to avoid. But to establish a new diplomatic channel or normalize diplomatic relations does not require a summit.

Summitry is used as leverage or to celebrate and punctuate diplomatic breakthroughs. The obstacles to our Cuba policy, however, require no leverage over Havana and no diplomatic exchanges. There may be a time for a Cuban-U.S. Summit, but not until we implement a policy that actually serves our interests.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1972, President Richard Nixon, in responding to the toast of Premier Chou En-Lai at the now-famous banquet that highlighted the beginning of a new U.S. policy toward China, made these remarks:

So, let us, in these next five days, start a long march together, not in
lockstep, but on different roads leading to the same goal, the goal of
building a world structure of peace and justice in which all may stand
together with equal dignity and in which each nation, large or small,
has a right to determine its own form of government, free of outside
interference or domination. (my emphasis)

On 26 June 2008, Senator Chuck Hagel, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, said:

This American presidential election presents unparalleled opportunities for
our country and our two candidates. They must not squander the
magnitude of this moment. The next president and his team will have a
unique opportunity to capture domestic and international support unlike
any time since September 11, 2001. I believe that America and the
world will follow an honest, competent and accountable American
president. To seize this moment, the next president will not have the
luxury of extra time to prepare to govern. The candidates must begin
that work now as they earn the trust of the people over the next four
months. (my emphasis)

One of the "unparalleled opportunities" that confronts America is a new policy with respect to Cuba, that island nation of 11 million souls just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, China, Russia, India, global warming, the need for a rational energy policy, infrastructure refurbishment, tax reform and a host of other international and domestic issues, reshaping Cuba policy is not at the top, or even near the top, of either presidential candidate's agenda. But it should be.

Our own hemisphere is changing as rapidly as the power changes that are rocking the United States from Beijing to Baghdad, from New Delhi to Dubai. In Brazil, one of the best leaders in the world, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, charts an increasingly positive course for a nation almost as large as the U.S., while in Argentinaâ€â€once the world's tenth most wealthy countryâ€â€the potential is there to recapture economic success. In Mexico, historic changes are underway that in a decade or two may propel that country into the economic limelight as well and, if not, send millions more immigrants into the United States. Wherever one looks in Latin America, change is underway. But the U.S. is either not involved or only marginally. Worse, in the one country where its aid money speaks volumesâ€â€Colombiaâ€â€the U.S. focus on narcotics looks to South Americans more like pure self-interest than anything else. This neglect and single-issue policy must cease.

Moreover, in some countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia, the U.S. is increasingly seen as unimportant or, worse, antagonistic to the wishes of the majority of the people and supportive still of wealthy elites and rapacious corporations. This damaging image needs to be erased as well.

The best way to begin reshaping our Latin America policy is an opening to that little island off the coast of Florida, Cuba.

Such an opening would signal immediately to the entire region that the U.S. has regained its collective senses, has rethought its foreign policy and, most importantly, will act accordingly. Such an opening would also begin to dispel the apprehension, now shared around the world, that neither global interests nor even national interests drive U.S. foreign policy anymore. Instead, that policy is driven exclusively by U.S. domestic interestsâ€â€and usually and most dangerously by narrow and extremist domestic interests pandered to increasingly by politicians of both political parties desperate to please their respective bases.

Such a rational foreign policy opening to Cuba would be welcomed by all of our friends and allies in the world, not least of which is our very best friend, ally and trade partner in the hemisphere, Canada.

Whoever is president in January 2009 should make a commitment to review U.S.-Cuba policy in the first 100 days. A review of that policy based strictly on national interests cannot help but lead to a lifting of the embargo on Cuba and, thus, a whole new policy for Latin America.

- Lawrence Wilkerson

In 1972, President Richard Nixon, in responding to the toast of Premier Chou En-Lai at the now-famous banquet that highlighted the beginning of a new U.S. policy toward China, made these remarks:

So, let us, in these next five days, start a long march together, not in
lockstep, but on different roads leading to the same goal, the goal of
building a world structure of peace and justice in which all may stand
together with equal dignity and in which each nation, large or small,
has a right to determine its own form of government, free of outside
interference or domination. (my emphasis)

On 26 June 2008, Senator Chuck Hagel, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, said:

This American presidential election presents unparalleled opportunities for
our country and our two candidates. They must not squander the
magnitude of this moment. The next president and his team will have a
unique opportunity to capture domestic and international support unlike
any time since September 11, 2001. I believe that America and the
world will follow an honest, competent and accountable American
president. To seize this moment, the next president will not have the
luxury of extra time to prepare to govern. The candidates must begin
that work now as they earn the trust of the people over the next four
months.(my emphasis)

One of the "unparalleled opportunities" that confronts America is a new policy with respect to Cuba, that island nation of 11 million souls just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, China, Russia, India, global warming, the need for a rational energy policy, infrastructure refurbishment, tax reform and a host of other international and domestic issues, reshaping Cuba policy is not at the top, or even near the top, of either presidential candidate's agenda. But it should be.

Our own hemisphere is changing as rapidly as the power changes that are rocking the United States from Beijing to Baghdad, from New Delhi to Dubai. In Brazil, one of the best leaders in the world, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, charts an increasingly positive course for a nation almost as large as the U.S., while in Argentinaâ€â€once the world's tenth most wealthy countryâ€â€the potential is there to recapture economic success. In Mexico, historic changes are underway that in a decade or two may propel that country into the economic limelight as well and, if not, send millions more immigrants into the United States. Wherever one looks in Latin America, change is underway. But the U.S. is either not involved or only marginally. Worse, in the one country where its aid money speaks volumesâ€â€Colombiaâ€â€the U.S. focus on narcotics looks to South Americans more like pure self-interest than anything else. This neglect and single-issue policy must cease.

Moreover, in some countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia, the U.S. is increasingly seen as unimportant or, worse, antagonistic to the wishes of the majority of the people and supportive still of wealthy elites and rapacious corporations. This damaging image needs to be erased as well.

The best way to begin reshaping our Latin America policy is an opening to that little island off the coast of Florida, Cuba.

Such an opening would signal immediately to the entire region that the U.S. has regained its collective senses, has rethought its foreign policy and, most importantly, will act accordingly. Such an opening would also begin to dispel the apprehension, now shared around the world, that neither global interests nor even national interests drive U.S. foreign policy anymore. Instead, that policy is driven exclusively by U.S. domestic interestsâ€â€and usually and most dangerously by narrow and extremist domestic interests pandered to increasingly by politicians of both political parties desperate to please their respective bases.

Such a rational foreign policy opening to Cuba would be welcomed by all of our friends and allies in the world, not least of which is our very best friend, ally and trade partner in the hemisphere, Canada.

Whoever is president in January 2009 should make a commitment to review U.S.-Cuba policy in the first 100 days. A review of that policy based strictly on national interests cannot help but lead to a lifting of the embargo on Cuba and, thus, a whole new policy for Latin America.

- Lawrence Wilkerson

In 1972, President Richard Nixon, in responding to the toast of Premier Chou En-Lai at the now-famous banquet that highlighted the beginning of a new U.S. policy toward China, made these remarks:

So, let us, in these next five days, start a long march together, not in
lockstep, but on different roads leading to the same goal, the goal of
building a world structure of peace and justice in which all may stand
together with equal dignity and in which each nation, large or small,
has a right to determine its own form of government, free of outside
interference or domination. (my emphasis)

On 26 June 2008, Senator Chuck Hagel, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, said:

This American presidential election presents unparalleled opportunities for
our country and our two candidates. They must not squander the
magnitude of this moment. The next president and his team will have a
unique opportunity to capture domestic and international support unlike
any time since September 11, 2001. I believe that America and the
world will follow an honest, competent and accountable American
president. To seize this moment, the next president will not have the
luxury of extra time to prepare to govern. The candidates must begin
that work now as they earn the trust of the people over the next four
months.(my emphasis)

One of the "unparalleled opportunities" that confronts America is a new policy with respect to Cuba, that island nation of 11 million souls just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, China, Russia, India, global warming, the need for a rational energy policy, infrastructure refurbishment, tax reform and a host of other international and domestic issues, reshaping Cuba policy is not at the top, or even near the top, of either presidential candidate's agenda. But it should be.

Our own hemisphere is changing as rapidly as the power changes that are rocking the United States from Beijing to Baghdad, from New Delhi to Dubai. In Brazil, one of the best leaders in the world, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, charts an increasingly positive course for a nation almost as large as the U.S., while in Argentinaâ€â€once the world's tenth most wealthy countryâ€â€the potential is there to recapture economic success. In Mexico, historic changes are underway that in a decade or two may propel that country into the economic limelight as well and, if not, send millions more immigrants into the United States. Wherever one looks in Latin America, change is underway. But the U.S. is either not involved or only marginally. Worse, in the one country where its aid money speaks volumesâ€â€Colombiaâ€â€the U.S. focus on narcotics looks to South Americans more like pure self-interest than anything else. This neglect and single-issue policy must cease.

Moreover, in some countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia, the U.S. is increasingly seen as unimportant or, worse, antagonistic to the wishes of the majority of the people and supportive still of wealthy elites and rapacious corporations. This damaging image needs to be erased as well.

The best way to begin reshaping our Latin America policy is an opening to that little island off the coast of Florida, Cuba.

Such an opening would signal immediately to the entire region that the U.S. has regained its collective senses, has rethought its foreign policy and, most importantly, will act accordingly. Such an opening would also begin to dispel the apprehension, now shared around the world, that neither global interests nor even national interests drive U.S. foreign policy anymore. Instead, that policy is driven exclusively by U.S. domestic interestsâ€â€and usually and most dangerously by narrow and extremist domestic interests pandered to increasingly by politicians of both political parties desperate to please their respective bases.

Such a rational foreign policy opening to Cuba would be welcomed by all of our friends and allies in the world, not least of which is our very best friend, ally and trade partner in the hemisphere, Canada.

Whoever is president in January 2009 should make a commitment to review U.S.-Cuba policy in the first 100 days. A review of that policy based strictly on national interests cannot help but lead to a lifting of the embargo on Cuba and, thus, a whole new policy for Latin America.

- Lawrence Wilkerson

(President Nixon with Premier Enlai during his famous visit to China in 1972)

In 1972, President Richard Nixon, in responding to the toast of Premier Chou En-Lai at the now-famous banquet that highlighted the beginning of a new U.S. policy toward China, made these remarks:

So, let us, in these next five days, start a long march together, not in lockstep, but on different roads leading to the same goal, the goal of building a world structure of peace and justice in which all may stand together with equal dignity and in which each nation, large or small, has a right to determine its own form of government, free of outside interference or domination. (my emphasis)

On 26 June 2008, Senator Chuck Hagel, in a speech at the Brookings Institution, said:

This American presidential election presents unparalleled opportunities for our country and our two candidates. They must not squander the magnitude of this moment. The next president and his team will have a unique opportunity to capture domestic and international support unlike any time since September 11, 2001. I believe that America and the world will follow an honest, competent and accountable American president. To seize this moment, the next president will not have the luxury of extra time to prepare to govern. The candidates must begin that work now as they earn the trust of the people over the next four months. (my emphasis)

One of the "unparalleled opportunities" that confronts America is a new policy with respect to Cuba, that island nation of 11 million souls just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But unlike Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, China, Russia, India, global warming, the need for a rational energy policy, infrastructure refurbishment, tax reform and a host of other international and domestic issues, reshaping Cuba policy is not at the top, or even near the top, of either presidential candidate's agenda. But it should be.

Our own hemisphere is changing as rapidly as the power changes that are rocking the United States from Beijing to Baghdad, from New Delhi to Dubai. In Brazil, one of the best leaders in the world, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, charts an increasingly positive course for a nation almost as large as the U.S., while in Argentina -- once the world's tenth most wealthy country -- the potential is there to recapture economic success. In Mexico, historic changes are underway that in a decade or two may propel that country into the economic limelight as well and, if not, send millions more immigrants into the United States. Wherever one looks in Latin America, change is underway. But the U.S. is either not involved or only marginally. Worse, in the one country where its aid money speaks volumes -- Colombia -- the U.S. focus on narcotics looks to South Americans more like pure self-interest than anything else. This neglect and single-issue policy must cease.

Moreover, in some countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia, the U.S. is increasingly seen as unimportant or, worse, antagonistic to the wishes of the majority of the people and supportive still of wealthy elites and rapacious corporations. This damaging image needs to be erased as well.

The best way to begin reshaping our Latin America policy is an opening to that little island off the coast of Florida, Cuba.

Such an opening would signal immediately to the entire region that the U.S. has regained its collective senses, has rethought its foreign policy and, most importantly, will act accordingly. Such an opening would also begin to dispel the apprehension, now shared around the world, that neither global interests nor even national interests drive U.S. foreign policy anymore. Instead, that policy is driven exclusively by U.S. domestic interests -- and usually and most dangerously by narrow and extremist domestic interests pandered to increasingly by politicians of both political parties desperate to please their respective bases.

Such a rational foreign policy opening to Cuba would be welcomed by all of our friends and allies in the world, not least of which is our very best friend, ally and trade partner in the hemisphere, Canada.

Whoever is president in January 2009 should make a commitment to review U.S.-Cuba policy in the first 100 days. A review of that policy based strictly on national interests cannot help but lead to a lifting of the embargo on Cuba and, thus, a whole new policy for Latin America.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson

In the May issue of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, arguably the most prestigious magazine in the realm of military affairs, appears an article entitled "Castro's Passing: Time for Engagement, Continued Confrontation, or Punitive Action?" by Colonel John C. McKay, USMC (Retired). Colonel McKay possesses the necessary bona fidesâ€â€not only is he a veteran of combat, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with an advanced degree from Georgetown University, and a former Olmsted Scholar in Spain, he grew up in Latin America, served as naval attaché in El Salvador, and commanded Joint Task Force 160, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Colonel McKay's argument with respect to U.S. policy toward Cuba centers in comments such as this:

The next step would be to start the process of correction, both of perception and of reality, of past indifferences toward and neglect of Latin America. The first order of business is to formulate a new national policy toward Cuba….

Colonel McKay adds:

…U.S. policy must demonstrate to Cuba, starting now, receptivity to engagement rather than continued confrontation, or worse, punitive action.

Why is it that with respect to Cubaâ€â€and for that matter so many other critical parts of American foreign policyâ€â€the military seems more attuned to potentially successful policy initiatives than the civilian side of our government? Could it possibly be that the military thinks, plans, and acts on the basis of realities in the world rather than ideologies, pipe dreams, and other phantasmagoria? You betcha' sweet bippies they do.

As a military man myself for 31 years, I know this to be the case. When you and your fellow soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and coastguardsmen and women know that your lives may be placed on the line to ensure U.S. policies are carried out, you spend a great deal of time contemplating those policies. Those who say such thinking isn't a military man or woman's responsibility or purview should get a life: all of the military's senior educational processes have been aimed at that purpose since Alfred Thayer Mahan first raised his hand and President Theodore Roosevelt recognized it. And thank God for that development since the only really sane thought about foreign policy these days seems to emanate from the military.

Whether Iraq, Iran (see the General Petraeus confirmation hearings on his selection to be the new commander of U.S. Central Command), Syria, Cuba, Latin America in general, or a host of other foreign policy issues, the military's take on realistic options is far sounder than that of the current administration's civilian members, with the possible exception of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Perhaps in that latter case, exposure to the military has affected Mr. Gates.

Presidential possibilities Obama and McCain need to listen not only to the better angels of their nature but to the sanest minds in their midst once either man attains the Oval Office. With regard to Cuba, Colonel McKay's advice is an excellent starting place.

- Lawrence Wilkerson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Steve Clemons

During a taping session for a new book I am involved with titled America and the World featuring the Washington Post's David Ignatius interviewing former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, I asked Brent Scowcroft whether he thought the US embargo of Cuba made any sense.

His answer was blunt. He said in foreign policy terms, "no" and implied that US-Cuba policy was a domestic issue, somewhat disdainfully in my view.

Watch the tape above, but this is what Brent 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.

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