So the smart move is for politicians in the United States to proceed with caution in reviewing the embargo policy.
The key question in reassessing the embargo policy is this: will American businesses be able to get a fair shake in Cuba?
At a Tuesday campaign event in Miami, Florida, McCain attacked Obama's position in favor of a possible relaxation of the Cuban embargo policy and discussions with the leadership of the island nation.
The closure of the border had been part of an embargo policy by Egypt and Israel aimed at cutting off Hamas, though it simultaneously created an economic hardship in Gaza by limiting shipments of goods in and out of the country.
The U.S. embargo is indeed an unsatisfactory policy, one which imposes costs on both the Cuban people and the United States.
The pro-embargo folks are ignoring the policy's epic failure and fail to recognize that U.S. policy has played into the hands of the Castro brothers, who have sinisterly used it to make the case to their people that if Cuba is starving and the island economy can't grow, it's because of this U.S. policy.
Thus, in considering changes in U.S. - Cuban relations such as lifting the embargo, it is important for policy makers in the United States to understand the many ways Cuba works against our national security interests.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Cuban Intelligence Operations in the US
In fact, as reported on 9 September 1993 in a Center for Security Policy Decision Brief entitled Lifting Embargo Under Present Circumstances Will Produce New Vietnam Quagmire for Clinton (No. 93-D 76), the most experienced field investigators are effectively being taken off the case through reassignment to Hawaii -- or, as in the case of the most senior and experienced investigator, Garnett "Bill" Bell, through forced early retirement.
Thus the entire narrative about the embargo and the need to protect ourselves against foreign policy blackmail was never true.
But policy towards Cuba, and especially the American embargo against the island, nowadays lies mainly in Congress's hands.
He has attacked America's policy of air strikes and sanctions against Iraq and the decades-old embargo against Cuba.
On foreign policy, Brazil was against the war in Iraq, against the Cuba embargo, and against sanctions on Iran because of its uranium enrichment program.
FORBES: Obama Arrives in Brasilia to Pomp, Circumstance and...Some Protest
Here the eminent authors pinpoint three policy differences on immigration, the war on drugs and the embargo on Cuba that have pitted the United States against the consensus of the hemisphere's other 34 governments.
ECONOMIST: An interesting reversal in the Western hemisphere
Annie Lowrey at Foreign Policy thinks an independent Texas would whither, but because it would be crushed by war and embargo from the remaining United States.
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