Fidel Castro announced his retirement today, and now is the time to reassess our policy towards Cuba. 

 It would difficult to argue that his retirement represents the success of over forty years of embargo. It always seemed to me that the sum total of American policy towards Cuba was predicated on the notion that once Fidel Castro was out of the picture, statues would fall, the Cuban people would come out of their darkened hovels into the bright light of a new day, and freedom and democracy would ring out across the land. Of course, this scenario was usually offered up by the same people who said the Iraqis would greet us a liberators!

As of today, despite the fact that Fidel Castro has announced he will step down, Cuba remains a dictatorship, and the political and economic reforms the Cuban people desperately need are no closer to reality just because Castro will no longer be in charge.  However, there is now a real opportunity for change.

The regime of Cuba is changing, now it’s up to us to act accordingly. Raul Castro probably isn’t anyone’s ideal democratic reformer, but all the same, we need to change how the U.S. deals with his regime if we are to have any chance of exerting a positive influence. This change must happen now for both the good of the Cuban people and the overall security and welfare of the United States and the Americas as a whole.  

We can either continue the current belligerent state of an old world, cold war grudge match, or we can face up to the new realities of the twenty-first century. We can either continue to pretend that our policy of isolating Cuba will do little more now than isolate America further from the rest of the world, or we can take advantage of the change of leadership there to bring about a new policy here.

Now is the time for cautious and pragmatic re-engagement with the Cuban regime so that we can demonstrate first-hand the benefits of an open and democratic society to the the Cuban people.  The question is,  do we first need a change of leadership in Washington DC as well?