An Obama Policy for Cuba

With his national security team in place, President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy principals will be immediately struck by how many complex and expensive challenges they will face. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and Russia, will all require enormous energy, all the tools in our foreign policy toolbox, and will all take years to resolve, if they can be resolved. None of these crises will allow President Obama to signal swiftly to the world the kind of changes he proposes in American foreign policy. In contrast, U.S.-Cuba policy is low-hanging fruit: though of marginal importance domestically, it could be changed immediately at little cost.

At present, that policy is a major black spot on America's international reputation. For the rest of the world, our failed, obsolete and 50-year old policy toward Cuba goes against everything that Obama campaigned for, and the recent 185-3 U.N. vote to condemn the centerpiece of that policy, the embargo – the 16th such vote in as many years – makes that clear. The entire world believes our policy is wrong.

And the world is right. The fact is that since Cuba stopped exporting revolution and started exporting doctors and nurses, it ceased being a national security concern for the United States. And yet we restrict travel to the island - unconstitutionally - and constrain Cuban-Americans in the amount of money they can send to their families on the island. Moreover, the economic embargo hurts the Cuban people more than the Cuban leadership, and our Helms-Burton legislation imposes Washington's will on foreign businesses who wish to trade with Cuba, creating ill will in business communities from Canada to Brazil.

Our Cuba policy is also an obstacle to striking a new relationship with the nations of Latin America. Any 21st-century policy toward Latin America will have to shift from the Cold War-era emphasis on right-wing governments and top-down economic adjustment to creating a hemispheric partnership to address many critical issues: the revival of militant leftism, the twin challenges of sustainability and inclusive economic growth, and the rising hemispheric influence of Russia and China. But until Washington ends the extraordinary sanctions that comprise the Cuba embargo, Latin America will remain at arms-length, and the problems in our backyard - Hugo Chavez, drugs, immigration, energy insecurity - will simply fester.

The November elections shattered the old political constraints on Cuba policy. It used to be that Cuba policy was controlled by the Cuban-American community in South Florida. It had been gospel that to win Florida's 27 electoral votes a candidate for president had to win the Cuban-American vote. What was once gospel is now history. President-elect Obama won Florida with only 35 percent of the Cuban-American vote.

Obama now needs his own policy, not a retread of past failure. We see three important elements of such a policy.

First, Obama should call on Congress to end the travel ban on all Americans for any purpose. This action not only restores Americans' constitutional rights, it also unleashes the greatest ambassadors of democracy and free markets, the American people.

Second, Obama should call on the Congress to repeal two aspects of the Helms-Burton act to restore the Constitution's separation of powers and to end the disruptive use of extra-territorial sanctions.

Finally, Obama must sign an executive order to meet the urgent needs of the hundreds of thousands of Cuban people who were affected by a record four hurricanes this season. The Cuban people are suffering and even the wives of jailed political dissidents, in an October teleconference with first lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, pleaded for the United States to lift the embargo for humanitarian reasons. This can be done. But since the Cuban government will not accept traditional disaster assistance, the new president must use his "notwithstanding" authority enshrined in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to lift the embargo for 180 days and allow Cuba to purchase civilian items with cash or credit on the American market. Such an action will instill immediate good will among the Cuban people.

With these three objectives accomplished, Cuba policy will once again be back in the hands of the executive branch, which can begin a deliberate process of negotiations to normalize relations. While some will say such a policy amounts to "free concessions" to the Castro brothers, we look at it differently. Fidel and Raul Castro are at death's door. Change is coming. Everyone seems to realize it but the United States. A new, decisive policy toward Cuba, wrought by the new "change" president, will send a clear signal to the world that America is back. Moreover, such change will liberate U.S. relations with Latin America and open the door to dealing effectively with our own hemisphere's many challenges.