Obama vows change in U.S. policy on Cuba

President-elect has indicated he's open to talks with Raul Castro

HAVANA - Cuba's communist leadership has long cast itself as David standing up to the U.S. Goliath and the crippling force of America's punitive trade and travel embargo.

Now they have a problem: If Barack Obama follows through on campaign promises to ease restrictions on the island, he could chip away at the Castro brothers' best case for staying in power. And if a new Democrat-dominated Congress takes Obama's moves even further, Cuban leaders may have a hard time maintaining their tight control over Cuban society.

The U.S. government's Cuba policy has been frozen in time since 1962, when it imposed the embargo with the aim of bringing down Fidel Castro's government at a time when U.S.-backed exiles mounted the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and Soviet missiles in Cuba pushed the world close to nuclear war.

Sporadic congressional efforts to end the embargo since then have failed, largely due to the political influence of powerful Cuban exiles who insisted on isolating Cuba and trying to strangle its economy to force Castro out. But Castro, now 82, remained in power until he ceded the presidency to his brother in February due to illness. And Raul Castro, 77, shows no sign of making any fundamental changes.

The embargo is "a policy that hasn't worked in nearly 50 years," said Wayne Smith, a former top U.S. diplomat to Havana and a Cuba fellow at John Hopkins' Center for International Policy. "It's stupid, it's counterproductive and there is no international support for it."

Obama has promised to lift limits that President George W. Bush tightened on Cuban-Americans wanting to visit and send money to relatives. He also says he's open to a dialogue with Raul Castro �?something the Cuban president has indicated he would welcome. If Obama really wants to force the Castro's to open up, he should push Congress to eliminate the embargo altogether, and allow Americans to freely travel to Cuba, said Smith. "Lifting travel and remittance restrictions on Cuban-Americans just doesn't get to the heart of the problem."

"Today for the first time there is real political space for an incoming administration to try something new on Cuba policy," said Jake Colvin, vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which opposes all unilateral sanctions.

In Havana, dissident journalist Miriam Leiva says toppling the embargo could be agonizing for communist leaders who have long used it to "justify their errors and efficiencies, to repress and jail anyone of differing opinions."

Many Cubans are hoping a new U.S. administration will encourage openings that improve their lives.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27609745/

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{ Few policies have lasted longer, been embraced by more administrations both left and right and been more futile and ill conceived than America's policy on Cuba. This antique policy of the cold war is both an embarrassment and a disgrace. It is a sop thrown to the so called "Miami Cubans" and their perceived political power in south Florida. It's hard to become President without Florida and Florida doesn't come easy without these wealthy, influential and Castro hating Cuban ex-patriots.

" I hate those bastards in Havana and I want to see the Castro brothers at the end of a rope just like Saddam!". This was said to me by a friendly bartender in Miami last December when we were on holidays and it seems to sum up how many Cuban Americans feel. It's personal and visceral and it is a desire for revenge. They want a free Cuba but even more......they want the communists dead.

There is no logical reason why relations between the USA and Cuba can't be normalized. In fact as the article above states it may be the fastest way of getting rid of the Castro brothers and their dictatorship. The Cubans are a proud and patriotic people who love their country and it's independence from American influence. When Castro took over Cuba from Batista in 1959 by force the American mafia had turned their nation into an international whorehouse. The Cubans simply want to go their own way and the Castro brothers found a way. The Cubans have paid a heavy price for their independence and they deserve a break.

I hope that an Obama administration will bring some fresh air into this debate and ultimately get rid of both the embargo and the official hostility toward the Island. What do you think?}