What do you call a US policy...that has been repudiated at the United Nations by virtually every other country in the world? A policy that, after forty-eight years of abject failure, is still based on the false assumption that success--in the form of "regime change"--is just around the corner? Imperial. Illogical. Irrational. Insane...

The next occupant of the White House will have an unusual opportunity to bring US policy toward Cuba into the twenty-first century. Slowly but surely, the political actors are realigning...

In Washington, there is a reinvigorated, and increasingly bipartisan, effort to pressure Bush, presidential contenders and the new Congress to lift parts of the embargo and move toward normal relations. On April 18, for example, the New America Foundation launched an initiative to shape a "new consensus" on Cuba at a press conference featuring Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Speakers at the event echoed a recent report from the Center for Democracy in the Americas, In Our National Interest: Top Ten Reasons for Changing US Policy Toward Cuba: "We need a new Cuba policy rooted in America's national interest and our common sense."

Those reasons, which include the constitutional right to travel, the harm the embargo has done to American business and the advancement of US security interests such as drug interdiction, have begun to resonate in Congress. Bills are being introduced to lift or modify the trade and travel embargoes. In an opinion piece in the April 14 Washington Post, Republican Jeff Flake and Democrat Charles Rangel argued that it is time to "increase American influence by building bridges rather than barriers to Cuba..."

For the complete article, please visit The Nation website.

For more information on New America's recent U.S. - Cuba Policy event, please click here.