NORMALIZING RELATIONS WITH CUBA

It's time for the Obama Administration to lift the decades-long embargo of our island neighbor, Cuba. The embargo, dating back to the early sixties when Fidel Castro imposed Communist rule upon the tiny island, has outlived its purpose. In fact, a good argument can be made that the continuation of the embargo in today's world is actually counter-productive.

Over the past year and a half, Fidel Castro's brother, Raul, who now rules Cuba, has been attempting to initiate a series of free-market reforms to transform the Cuban economy from a strictly controlled government system to one that functions under free-market principles, albeit with government oversight. That's because, as Fidel Castro recently confided to a writer from "The Atlantic", Cuba's current government-controlled system is simply not working and cannot keep pace with the demands of the 21st century global economy.

The most recent example of the Castro government's free-market reform was the decision to lay off almost half a million workers from government financed jobs. To deal with that expected tidal wave of unemployed workers, the Cuban government recently enacted a series of laws that made private ownership of many businesses legal, so that unemployed workers could choose to go into business for themselves or seek employment in newly created businesses. The opening of Cuban markets to foreign investors also creates employment opportunities that heretofore did not exist. There is no reason why American investors should not be allowed to share in the development of Cuban markets too.

Both Raul and Fidel Castro recognize that for the vitality of their political revolution to remain strong, the Cuban economy must provide a sufficient standard of living for the island's residents; otherwise, their movement will be viewed from within as a complete failure. If that occurs, a certain-to-be-bloody insurrection would follow.

There are many in American neo-conservative circles who advocate maintaining the embargo in the hope that such an insurrection will occur and the Castro regime will be overthrown, but 48 years of waiting for that occurrence has not yielded any dividends, and there's something troubling about our praying for bloodshed so we can feel vindicated about our failed foreign policy.

The sensible thing for us to do is normalize relations with Cuba and allow free market forces to affect the kind of changes in the Cuban economy, and maybe even the Cuban government, that our foreign policy has never been able to do. It is not only the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective; it's also the right thing to do from a political and economic view.

America regularly trades with authoritarian and Communist regimes that are far more repressive than the Cuban regime, so to single out an island neighbor to continue with an embargo on the basis of government repression of citizens makes our foreign policy appear arbitrary. When that occurs, foreign countries lose respect for America. It doesn't have to be that way.

Many Americans have relatives in Cuba, and the re-establishment of family ties would greatly help in healing the political rift between our countries. We'll never agree on everything, but at least we'd be talking to each other, and that would be a step in the right direction.