Cuba Embargo Has Backfired: Time to End It

The Cuban embargo has failed to encourage democracy there, and the president-elect should do something about it, writes Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. It's time to “bring five decades of counterproductive American policy toward Cuba to a definitive end.” While engagement with other Communist regimes has worked to our benefit, the shunning of Cuba has only strengthened Fidel Castro’s outsider credentials.

“US policy for dealing with the rest of the communist world was always to push for more contact and exchange,” Robinson writes, “on the theory that exposure to Western ideas, freedoms and prosperity would hasten communism's demise. It worked.” A sensible plan, perhaps aided by Raul Castro’s more moderate regime, starts with “recognizing the obvious: If a set of policies hasn't produced results for 50 years, it really is time to try something else.” (More Cuba stories.)