Washington Note's Clemmons On Obama's Foreign Policy and Cuba

[illinoisprogressive]

There is a strong wind that all of a sudden seems to be moving US-Cuba relations in new directions.

Presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton are going to have to decide whether they are going to spend political capital to keep US-Cuba relations in grooves carved out over five decades and defended by Bush -- or whether they are going to be part of charting a new, more constructive course.

The Los Angeles Times today ran an editorial that pulls no punches in highlighting the failures of a five-decade old American strategy that has yielded nothing for American interests. The editorial juxtaposes Clinton and Obama -- who are on conflicting pages when it comes to loosening the tight noose that Bush has strangled Cuban-American families with when it comes to family travel.

But impressively, the Times calls for full, unrestricted travel, which is my own position as well as that of Senator Chris Dodd, whose statement on US-Cuba relations still sets the gold standard.


more here

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002296.php