In an unpublished letter to the editor of the Miami Herald, John McAulliff, Executive Director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development in New York (director@ffrd.org) , wrote about "The Cuban Five" and Luis Posada Carriles:

It is often said that terrorism lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Cuba has a new leader, as soon will the US. They must show the courage to bridge
90 miles with a spirit of mutual respect. After a long conflict, wishing that the other
were different is normal. However, setting preconditions for talking, insisting that the antagonist must first change itself to become an acceptable interlocutor, means one
is not serious about solving problems.

Mr. McAuliff went on later to add that, today, the Cuban 5 and the US 59 seemed particularly to fit this mirror perspective. In Havana, the Cuban 5:

…are heroes and people of conviction who were unfairly arrested, tried by a biased
legal system and sentenced to inappropriately long and harsh terms.

From my perspective, both sets of people are victims of the hostile relationship
between the countries.

Now, the Vatican has weighed in. The Catholic News Agency, reporting on a meeting between Cardinal Bertone and Cuba's new president, Raúl Castro, reported in late February that:

Cardinal Bertone said, 'the President emphasized the importance of reciprocity at the international level. He said he was willing to address all the problems with great openness and even to make concrete gestures in an atmosphere of reciprocity.' In that regard, Cardinal Bertone mentioned 'the crucial problems of Cuba' related to the US-led embargo and the European Union sanctions, which 'slow its development and do not allow for the serious socio-economic difficulties that afflict the island to be faced.'

The Vatican cardinal said President Castro also brought up the issue of five Cuban prisoners in the United States and their humanitarian treatment, 'with the eventual possibility of an exchange.' (my emphasis)

What an excellent opportunity for a new president in January to reach out and settle in a spirit of newfound cooperation—and in a more profound sense of real U.S. security needs—this festering problem. Let's exchange the Cuban Five for the US 59. Moreover, let's use that exchange as the start of something new and different, discarding the failed policy of half a century and replacing it with one that works.

- Lawrence Wilkerson

The conventional wisdom in Washington holds that there are two big obstacles for Cuba becoming a salient political issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. First is the electoral college math. Miami/Dade County is the second-largest metro area in a swing state with 27 electoral votes--10 percent of those needed to elect a president. And if there is a third rail of politics in Miami, it would be the embargo: touch it and die.

The second obstacle, according to conventional wisdom, is the spectre of being soft on Communism. The recent New York Times article profiling John McCain's senior campaign advisor Charlie Black talked about how in the 1980s Black's Political Action Committee "set a new standard for negative advertising with its campaigns against six liberal senators in 1980, portraying them as “baby killers” for their support of abortion rights, cozy with Castro and soft on national defense." Little has changed in the art of negative politics in the intervening twenty years and we can expect the same kind of attacks in the winner-take-all general election.

But time has had an impact on the Cuba issue and the conventional wisdom is seeing some cracks. Specifically, there is an interesting demographic trend that pollsters are calling "the generation gap." Sixty-five percent of Cuban-American residents of Miami/Dade County support dialogue with the regime in Havana, according to the latest Florida International University poll. That's up 10 percent since 2004. Similarly, 64 percent of this same population support an immediate, unilateral return to the pre-2004 embargo rules.

The reason is simple. The more recent waves of Cuban immigrants have a different relationship to the island. Recent immigrants were more likely economic migrants, fleeing the lack of opportunity and taking advantage of the loose, wet-foot, dry-foot asylum policy that effectively means citizenship for anyone who makes it to dry U.S. soil. It was a calculated gamble: they left behind their families to make the treacherous 90 mile sea voyage for the chance of supporting their loved ones back home with hard-currency remittances.

The old generation left more for political reasons. Comprised in large part of the families who supported, Haiti-style, the U.S.-backed dictator Battista, these families saw their businesses and property nationalized, collectivized, in other words, stolen by the Castro revolutionaries. They brought their extended families with them and after fifty years in exile, their ties back home are generally weaker.

But the issue that made the generation gap into something more than an interesting demographic discussion was George Bush's 2004 tightening of the embargo in areas that hurt newer immigrants disproportionately: family travel and remittances. Now children in the United States have to decide which parent's funeral to attend. Their economic survival strategies, based on risking death to come to America to send back remittances, were suddenly defeated. This was a major wedge.

Add to this a new dynamic. Local economic issues are beginning to compete with the anti-Castro orthodoxy and what was once a solid voting bloc is beginning to splinter. Again, the division is between the older generation and the younger. Older Cuban emigres are more economically established, while the younger are more vulnerable. Florida has been one of the epicenters of the housing slump, and with it, young families will be voting their pocketbooks, not their parent's party line.

Of the registered voters surveyed by FIU, 74 percent responded that the Cuba Embargo has worked not very well or not at all; 53 percent want to see agricultural trade with Cuba expanded or kept the same; even 51 percent want the U.S. to extend full diplomatic relations to Cuba.

Those kinds of numbers, combined with the deep economic concerns all Floridians face, seem to argue against the conventional reading of the electoral math. The Cuban-American community is no longer a solid bloc. What remains is the soft-on-communism question. On this issue, there is also room for a change in the terms of the debate.

With 74 percent of Cuban-American voters agreeing with the statement that the embargo has not worked, that is the place to start. The embargo has not worked because it is unilateral and the rest of the world, especially Europe and including Israel, is profiting from trade with Cuba. These nations look at Cuba the way we look at China or Vietnam: an opportunity for using trade and the slow force of popular expectations of rising prosperity as a lever for change rooted in the citizenry of Cuba, not the fantasies of an empowered exile minority.

But the real failure of the embargo is that it helps prop up the Castro regime. Today, Cuba's integration to the rest of the global economy gives it security. Though dependent on the largess of other powers, Cuba has diversified that dependence, with support coming from Venezuela, China and Brazil, supplemented by real trade with Europe and Canada. In that kind of economic environment, the embargo does more for the revolution than against it.

First, the embargo provided a ready-made excuse for Fidel, and now Raul, to explain why the Cuban revolution is underperforming the people's expectations. It's not the fact that they have two generals controlling two-thirds of the hard currency earnings that the economy is in desperate shape, it's the embargo. It's not that their state-owned tourism industry cannot convince European and Canadian holiday-makers to return for a second time, it's the embargo. It's not that the lack of private property eliminates the chance for collateral, the foundation for all modern economies, it's the embargo.

Second, the embargo is the cornerstone of Cuban Nationalism. Every national movement needs an enemy to give it a sense of shared adversity, what sociologists call a "super-ordinate goal." Take the embargo away, and the foundation of the the Castro power base, intense, loyal nationalism born of the conflict with the United States, will gradually erode.

If most Cuban-Americans agree that the embargo has failed, then it should not be too hard to convince them that the embargo is, in fact, shielding the Cuban regime from internal forces that in other societies, would be shaping a new politics.

And if that's the case, then being "cozy with Castro" really means supporting the embargo.

Clearly, the generation gap in Miami-Dade County will change the politics of Cuba policy in the United States. Without the electoral math and the soft-on-communism to protect it, the only question is whether change happens sooner, or later.

Comrade and General Raúl Castro Ruz has now, it seems, taken full control of the reins of government in Cuba and el commandante y jefe, Fidel Castro—who for nearly half a century successfully defied nine (not counting Ike, who knew better) American presidents—has receded more and more into the background noise of a slowly changing Cuba. But what does this successful and now almost complete transition portend for the 11 million Cubans who deserve a better life?

Well, that is the question on everyone's mind who follows Cuban affairs. From a very cynical viewpoint like that of Patrick Symmes in the most recent edition of Harper's Magazine ("The Battle of Ideas"), to the very realpolitik views of U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, to the yammering of strident right-wingers like Roger Noriega, we receive frequent prognoses, plans, or pronunciamientos.

But what is really going on?—apart from the carefully contrived rhetoric of Dade County spinmeisters, Administration hacks, or even on-island government mouthpieces. It's hard to tell, really.

Cellphone use, limited property rights, incentives for farmers, moves toward shaped privatization, increases in salaries, and other initiatives reach our ears and entice but it's very hard to tell what they mean for average Cubans. And, as with most situations of rising expectations, we don’t know if the situation will get out of hand, as viewed by the leadership, and a severe backlash result, or further openings will occur, or what.

Whether Symmes knows it or not is debatable, but the central theme of his very film noire-like article is that Cuban dissidents are few and far between, ill-equipped, ill-resourced, and compose an inchoate group of ne'r-do-wells. Irony of ironies, but they appear in Symmes' descriptions to be much like those who tried to wade ashore at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and whose remnants, aged but still defiant, now occupy a decrepit training camp in southern Florida.

On the other hand, if there is a sound statement of strategy with regard to how the U.S., el coloso del norte (and, under George W. Bush, el coloso sin una cabeza!), ought to be responding to all this ferment and creeping change in Cuba, it is without mistake that of Senator Dodd's:

Our Cuba policy has been agonizingly static for almost fifty years.

It has neither served America’s interests nor brought democracy to the island.

When Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother Raul, we reached a critical moment.

We all now have a choice -- either we engage the Cuban people and leadership to help shape the landscape for the next fifty years, or we remain on the sidelines to no one's benefit.

I believe we must dramatically alter our posture towards Cuba, by ending the trade embargo, lifting travel restrictions and caps on remittances to the struggling Cuban people, and by engaging in bilateral and multilateral talks on issues of mutual interest.

The only certainty guaranteed by our Cuba policy over the past forty years has been the continuation of Fidel Castro’s grip on power.

Once we embark on this road to reform, I am confident that it will be nearly impossible for the Cuban government and its people to turn back.

And the same will be true for us.

I'll take Dodd's prescriptions even further:

If the U.S. does not change its policy toward Cuba—and change it more or less along the lines Dodd proposes—then regardless of the outcome of the changes now taking place on the island, plus those changes undoubtedly to come, the United States will be on the outside peering in, not on the inside helping to shape change. Indeed, not even on the outside ready to assist change. We will be, as we have so often been under the feckless leadership of Richard Cheney and George W. Bush, out in the cold—with no influence, no weight, and no friends.

If only our presidential election were tomorrow morning!

- Lawrence Wilkerson

Even in retirement, Fidel Castro exerts outsized influence over our country’s political life. Even now, he may affect the access Floridians have to health care.

How can this be? To teach Castro a lesson, a state legislator is fighting to ban American doctors, educated in Cuba, from practicing medicine in Florida, and already a committee has acted to move this proposal forward.

This story, about a small and largely symbolic issue, speaks volumes about how Fidel-o-phobia can cause even our most well-meaning public officials to do the strangest and most self-defeating things.

Nearly a decade ago, President Castro founded the Latin American School of Medicine, also called “ELAM,” where foreign students are given a medical education for free. They come largely from developing countries’ poor and indigenous communities where medical care is desperately needed, and they are encouraged to return to those communities to practice. ELAM is a classic example of Cuba’s application of soft-power in its international diplomacy.

Over a hundred American students—mainly from minority communities-- are now enrolled there. Who are these students? They are whip smart, highly motivated kids, desperate to become physicians, yet unable to afford a medical education in the United States, or unwilling to shoulder the $200,000 debt that now hits the average US medical student the day after graduation.

So, they go to Cuba, learn Spanish (coming home bilingual), take bridging courses in sciences if necessary and spend six years being trained as physicians in Cuba alongside students from 28 other countries. After which, the hope is, they will return to the United States and practice medicine in some of the thousands of our country’s under-served communities.

Is a Cuban medical education any good? According to experts we’ve consulted, the answer is yes. Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, a former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General, says Cuban medical education is well-respected and that Cuba’s achievement in scaling up physician training is an important example for other countries. The first US graduate has already passed his medical boards and is in his first year of residency in New York City. With the latest class, a total of 17 will have graduated by this summer.

Enter Rep. Eddy Gonzalez.

His bill, HB 685, which was passed by the Healthcare Council, and will now go to a floor vote, will strictly prohibit any of these American medical students currently enrolled at ELAM from practicing medicine in Florida.

According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, this would make Florida the first state in the nation to ban all physicians who graduated from any school in a particular country.

Even though Rep. Gonzalez has called facets of Cuba’s health care system "state of the art," he says that students educated in Cuba, whose government he despises, “do not possess the basic judgment and character required for the ethical practice of medicine in Florida."

Rep. Gonzalez vastly underestimates the idealism and the devotion to medicine possessed by these doctors, and nothing in his legislation will change the Cuban system. What it will do is stop Florida from getting young, talented physicians to practice where they are surely needed.

Dr. Karl Altenburger, president of the Florida Medical Association, calls the state’s doctor shortage severe. He’s said that young doctors don’t want to come to Florida to practice; the state lacks internships, residency programs, and fellowships. The average age of doctors in Florida is 51 and a quarter of the state’s physicians are over 60.

Florida, the fourth most populous state, is ranked 20th in its number of active physicians by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Tad Fisher, executive Vice President of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians, said that Florida needs an additional 12,000 primary care physicians by 2020 to meet its health care needs.

And there are plenty of underserved people in Gonzalez’s home district: the Health Council of South Florida’s Miami-Dade County’s 2007 Community Health Report Card gave “access to health care” a pretty scary “F”.

Florida acknowledges these problems and advertises on the internet to recruit physicians to treat patients in the state who don’t have adequate access to doctors. It even offers waivers to attract foreign-born, foreign educated physicians to serve. But American students educated in Cuba? They need not apply.

When Floridians come down with Fidel-o-phobia, they torment each other (and the rest of us) just to show Castro up. More often than not, we end up with silly ideas like this which hurt us, not him. Now that Fidel’s retired, we should stop dancing at the end of his string, look squarely at our own interests, and decide for ourselves the right way to pursue our nation’s ideals.

-- Sarah Stephens and Gail Reed

Gail Reed M.S., is a journalist who serves as International Director of Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC). Sarah Stephens is Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.

Some thoughts on what the next American president should do "On Day One":

This is part of a fascinating public policy outreach project organized by the Better World Campaign. There are lots of other offerings as well. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Cuban President Raul Castro has started his reforms -- well, he did quite a while ago actually though few noticed. But the new news is that the Cuban government has removed restrictions on the sale of computers, DVDs, and video players inside Cuba.

Old story first. When I was doing research in Cuba last March, Fidel Castro was ill and Raul Castro had assumed the responsibilities of acting head of state. In the past during Fidel's tenure, ministers -- questioned by legislators in Cuba's National Assembly -- used to wait for the President to instruct them on how to respond to legislators and the public.

Raul Castro changed that -- and told the ministers that they needed to be accountable for the performance of the institutions for which they had responsibility. Competence was the signal he was sending -- accountability. And he was telegraphing that they ought not wait for dictates of political correctness from his office.

But what Raul Castro has done today is open the door for a new consumer appetite. He is allowing people to purchase -- completely unrestricted -- the vehicles for the consumption and transport of "culture." DVDs, computers, and video players are how American power and culture are really heard and seen around the world today -- not through Pentagon machinery.

But as things stand now, America won't allow its content into Cuba. As the embargo stands, we hope that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez fills the scarce bandwidth now available in Cuba and are giving him no competition.

Raul Castro is moving forward in a constructive direction. The U.S. needs to adopt a set of policies now that is less "self-destructive" of American interests.

The Washington Note and The Havana Note look forward to many more readers now in Havana and throughout the nation of Cuba.

-- Steve Clemons

Though his campaign never caught the imagination of the electorate, Senator Dodd's forthright policy on Cuba ultimately helped leverage this exchange between Senators Clinton and Obama. Hot on the heels of his colleagues' letter to Secretary of State Rice, Senator Dodd, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Latin America, reiterates his position in today's Miami Herald.

The real question is whether one of the candidates for president will pick up on Sen. Dodd's argument that the U.S. embargo is really the backbone of the Castro regime. Simply removing that crutch, he argues, will do more to advance U.S. interests than just about anything else. If that's the case, any candidate in favor of sustaining the embargo, even conditioning U.S. policy on democratic change on the island, is really just being played by Havana.

Trade Can Help Cuba Move Toward Democracy

By Christopher Dodd

''If it were up to me, I would lift the embargo against Cuba the next day, and it would end your regime in three months,'' José María Aznar, the former Spanish prime minister, reported saying in a 1998 meeting with Fidel Castro.

Castro's response: ``I need the embargo, for this generation and the next.''

Telling words from a self-proclaimed hero of the people -- ''I need the embargo.'' The same embargo that was starving Cubans for decades was indispensable to their dictator. Castro was shrewd: He knew that isolation tightened his grip on Cuba and that America made an outstanding scapegoat for the failure of his revolution. In many ways, our misguided policies were responsible for his unnaturally long hold on power. In many ways, the embargo was Castro's best friend.

Last month, old age and illness did what our best efforts never could -- remove Castro from power. Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity, and a small window of time, to begin pushing Cuba toward democracy. But amazingly, the Bush administration is clinging to a 46-year-old policy of failure.

The reaction we have seen from the administration shows how deeply our foreign policy is trapped in rigid ideology. Any pragmatic case for continuing the embargo has been thoroughly undermined. It keeps families apart. It restricts the access of our farmers to Cuban markets.

And as Cuba strengthens its trade relationships, the economic impact of our embargo is progressively weakened. Even its moral symbolism verges on nonexistent: How can we swear off Cuba with a straight face, when we freely trade with countries that routinely violate human rights, such as Saudi Arabia and China?

We engage in trade with these nations not just to strengthen our economy, but because we have faith in the transformative power of American values and American culture carried by American trade. Of course, we don't expect that open markets will lead to open societies overnight, but some countries are riper for the transition than others. Cuba is one such country. Its rising generation of leaders, while still part of an authoritarian system, is markedly more comfortable on the world stage and less antagonistic to America than the declining generation represented by Castro.

The question is whether we will antagonize these new leaders -- or whether we will work with them to end political repression, protect civil society and establish free markets. If we choose the latter, wiser course, the last five decades will hold an unmistakable lesson:

With Cuba, isolation doesn't work. We should now take several strong steps to secure our role in Cuba's transition -- or risk sitting on the sidelines for another 50 years.

We should:

Act decisively to end trade sanctions. This means repealing the ill-conceived Helms-Burton and Cuba Democracy Acts, as well as amending the Trade Sanctions Reform Act. With the embargo lifted, our businesses will have access to Cuban markets, our struggling farmers will find more buyers for their crops, and Cuba will gain extensive exposure to American culture.

Break down the artificial barriers keeping Cuban Americans apart from their families in Cuba. Lifting caps on remittances and travel restrictions will speed the influx of democratic values -- and reduce an unnecessary hardship on Americans who want merely to assist their families overseas. Currently, the mail doesn't even travel regularly between the United States and Cuba, let alone passengers. As we lift travel restrictions, we should also begin negotiating regularly scheduled flights.

Open an American embassy in Havana. If we want any influence over Cuba during this crucial time, we must practice robust diplomacy.

There's no better way to do that than having skilled diplomats pressing our interests in Havana, at all times and in person.

Ending sanctions, connecting families and strengthening diplomacy -- this new policy of Cuban engagement is the most constructive response to Castro's demise. Some in the Bush administration might call such a policy ''soft'' -- but that represents the same mind-set that thought we could bomb our way to democracy in the Middle East.

For far too long, American isolation has cemented a Cuban dictatorship. Today, that dictatorship may finally be starting to crack; how we seize this opportunity will determine whether it crumbles.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.

With the anti-climactic departure of Fidel Castro from power in Cuba, it appears that the United States plans to hurry up and continue waiting for change in Cuba.

The waiting may soon be over. Today, twenty-four U.S. senators, led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), wrote to Secretary Rice (for letter click here) -- as did 104 members of the House last week--urging a rethink of U.S. policy toward the island of Cuba.

"There is no magic U.S. policy that will transform Cuba," the senators wrote. "But with Cuba facing a period of change, we have a new opportunity to seize. Our policy based on sanctions, passivity, and waiting should end. We need a new approach that defends human rights, is confident about the value of American engagement with Cubans, builds new economic bridges between America and Cuba, and seeks every possible avenue of increasing American influence."

While it is highly doubtful that Secretary Rice will have the opportunity to heed their advice in her remaining months in office, Congress may be set to press the issue next year, when there is a new administration to work with.

Majorities in both chambers have repeatedly voted to ease current U.S. restrictions on travel to the island, and have favored facilitating agricultural exports to Cuba. Previously, President Bush strongly opposed any relaxation of U.S. restrictions relating to Cuba, and former Majority Leader Tom Delay was known to make sure any such changes would die in conference.

What might happen next year, when there is a new president and a new Congress?

Most surely, a coalition of largely farm-state Democrats and Republicans will again get behind legislation to ease restrictions on cash transfers and bilateral travel by US exporters and Cuban buyers. But this time, the president might not stand in the way of a one-way export opportunity.

A majority in Congress is also likely to ease new restrictions on Cuban American family travel and remittances to the island, whether by clarifying the 2000 guidelines for categories of allowable travel, or by refusing to fund enforcement against such travel.

While easing family travel restrictions would be considered a humanitarian act, giving preference to one group of travelers would be an untenable position. Lifting the entire (de facto) ban on travel to Cuba remains the swiftest means to extend U.S. influence on the island and preserve all Americans' rights to travel, but it faces determined--minority--opposition in both chambers of Congress.

Yet, such opposition could be overcome, and the next president may not bother (when there are far more pressing matters in play) to veto less-expansive legislation that categorically allows and encourages people-to-people, humanitarian, academic, religious, family, and agricultural export-related travel to Cuba. All such categories of exchanges are already legal, but President Bush curtailed or ended them altogether four years ago by revising the regulations interpreting the law.

What else might the 111th Congress do? Numerous issues sitting on the back burner deserve prompt attention. Certainly there will be interest in oversight of such matters as human and labor rights advocacy, agricultural trade and other economic issues, US AID grantmaking, drug interdiction, military-to-military contacts, the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and anti-terrorism cooperation, Cuban intelligence operations in the United States, intellectual property and other rights under signed conventions, settlement of U.S. claims against Cuba, return of fugitives from justice in the U.S. and Cuba, Radio and TV Marti quality and viewership, and environment cooperation to prevent damage to the Florida coastline due to oil exploration in Cuban waters.

The foregoing legislative agenda would mark a clear shift in U.S. policy toward increasing U.S. influence--leverage arguably more potent than sanctions--and protecting U.S. interests relative to Cuba. There is no guarantee that conditions in Cuba will improve as a result of a U.S. policy shift. But no matter what policy the U.S. president stakes out, it is not likely that this Congress, or the next, will put much stock in waiting another fifty years to find out.

-- Anya Landau French

Later in the day, I plan to grade the various public statements from leading American politicians below. But one criteria I will use is whether they evince any humility at all about the fact that America's many decades old embargo failed to alter the political path of the Cuban government.

I will grade on the basis of whether these politicians are seeing and responding to reality or blinded by a perversion dictated by ideology and calculations that they think will help them with the vote in Miami but undermine US national interests.

Lexington Institute Senior Fellow Anya Landau French -- a former senior staff member on the Senate Finance Committee -- has this great article out today on the Washington Post's site, "Castro's Departure Means the US Failed".

I have one big quibble with it -- but the piece is excellent overall. Here's the lead in:

Fidel Castro leaving office on his own terms is not the kind of change that successive American presidents envisioned for Cuba. In fact, it's a sign that U.S. efforts to isolate that country and bring down its socialist government have failed. It's a sign that those efforts should be revisited.

Despite a 46-year U.S. embargo, Cuba today is anything but a pariah state. Canada, China and Spain have made major investments in the country over the last decade, particularly in tourism, nickel and energy. Venezuela continues to trade cut-rate oil for Cuban doctors. And the island remains a popular destination for vacationers from around the world.

These relationships have helped the Cuban economy grow -- 7 percent last year, according to CIA estimates. Moreover, they helped prevent the frustration-fueled overthrow that U.S. leaders long hoped would end Castro's regime. In effect, treating Cuba as an all-or-nothing proposition netted the United States nothing. Our interests have gone unserved and our ideals unmet.

But while Castro's departure is playing out differently from expectations, it still provides an opportunity. And the U.S. can either continue a policy rooted in ineffective sanctions or tailor its policy to the new possibilities of post-Fidel Cuba.

Some countries friendly to the United States are already moving ahead. Spain has initiated a human rights dialogue with Cuba. Brazil's President Lula da Silva, who recently offered Cuba a $1-billion line of credit, provides the island an alternative to its dependence on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

There are many steps the next U.S. president could take, short of offering economic aid or normalizing trade relations, that could increase our influence in Cuba without giving up leverage associated with the embargo.

My quibble is with the last line above: without giving up leverage associated with the embargo.

I think that one of the realities that needs to be confronted is that when I was in Havana, I met some Israelis involved with managing Cuban citrus groves. I saw a Benetton store in the new Havana. I saw Chinese selling major port infrastructure loading equipment to Cuba. British Petroleum was having a cocktail party on the roof of my hotel. Tourism is high.

There is always a sense of leverage that the US thinks it has -- but that leverage is now mostly fictional -- as Cuba has found other thoroughfares for growth.

We need to stop thinking that we have "leverage." The whole point of Anya Landau French's article is that US policy failed and that the embargo has failed -- so let's drop the fiction about the US having leverage in the embargo.

The only leverage America has on lifting or maintaining the embargo is with an aging, Castro-obsessed, reactionary population in Miami that thankfully is being taken over by a more rational contingent of Cuban-Americans who have either rethought their views or who just don't carry the same views as their elders in their younger portfolios of experience.

-- Steve Clemons

I will grade the statements later made by the various national leaders below. But I think it's important to create a semi-central repository of some of the more important leadership responses.

Interestingly, Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA-03) on a conference call this morning said that he believes Obama and Clinton both are more flexible than their public statements indicate.

Here are some of the statements I have seen:

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)

"Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history. Fidel Castro's stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba.

"Cuba's future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It's time for these heroes to be released.

"If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together."

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

"As you know, Fidel Castro announced that he is stepping down as Cuba's leader after 58 years of one-man rule. The new leadership in Cuba will face a stark choice -- continue with the failed policies of the past that have stifled democratic freedoms and stunted economic growth -- or take a historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations. The people of Cuba want to seize this opportunity for real change and so must we.

"I would say to the new leadership, the people of the United States are ready to meet you if you move forward towards the path of democracy, with real, substantial reforms. The people of Cuba yearn for the opportunity to get out from under the weight of this authoritarian regime, which has held back 11 million talented and hardworking citizens of the Americas. The new government should take this opportunity to release political prisoners and to take serious steps towards democracy that give their people a real voice in their government.

"The American people have been on the side in the Cuban people's struggle for freedom and democracy in the past and we will be on their side for democracy in the future.

"As president, I will engage our partners in Latin America and Europe who have a strong stake in seeing a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, and who want very much for the United States to play a constructive role to that end. The United States must pursue an active policy that does everything possible to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and opportunity in Cuba.

"The events of the past three days, including elections in Pakistan and Kosovo's declaration of independence, are a vivid illustration of people around the world yearning for democracy and opportunity. We need a president with the experience to recognize and seize these opportunities to advance America's values and interests around the world. I will be that president."

Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

"Today's resignation of Fidel Castro is nearly half a century overdue. For decades, Castro oversaw an apparatus of repression that denied liberty to the people who suffered under his dictatorship.

"Yet freedom for the Cuban people is not yet at hand, and the Castro brothers clearly intend to maintain their grip on power. That is why we must press the Cuban regime to release all political prisoners unconditionally, to legalize all political parties, labor unions and free media, and to schedule internationally monitored elections.

"Cuba's transition to democracy is inevitable; it is a matter of when -- not if. With the resignation of Fidel Castro, the Cuban people have an opportunity to move forward and continue pushing for the moment that they will truly be free. America can and should help hasten the sparking of freedom in Cuba. The Cuban people have waited long enough.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)\

"Let us hope that the long ruthless dictatorship of Fidel Castro is truly over, and that freedom and democracy may come to Cuba.

Replacing one dictator with another, as appears to be the case, isn't the answer to the repression, brutality and fear produced by five decades of Castro. But that doesn't diminish the hope for or the efforts toward the day when the Cuban people can choose their own leaders and enjoy the freedom that Castro so relentlessly denied."

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ)

"This is not the cause for celebration that some would believe. This does not represent the replacement of totalitarianism with democracy -- instead, it is the replacement of one dictator with another. In essence, today's action makes official what has been in place for a while now, with Raul continuing to lead the same iron-fisted regime that his brother brought to power almost 50 years ago. Just because the dictator is now named Raul instead of Fidel, it doesn't mean that the regime's repressive rule will automatically change.

"What this move does perhaps present is a moment of hope. Raul does not have the same relationship with the Cuban people as Fidel, and now is the time to challenge him. Cubans who have been clamoring for change may see this as the opportunity to peacefully protest and make their aspirations known. The recent activism of Cuban youth wearing white "Cambio" bracelets is a reflection of that desire for change.

Here in the United States, it is a time to further nurture the human rights activists, political dissidents and independent-minded journalists inside of Cuba who have the capability to stoke the movement toward freedom."

Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

"It is important to realize that, as of this time, there has been no change in totalitarian Cuba.

Fidel Castro has been critically ill and immobile for over a year and a half. Accordingly, he has decided to relinquish the titles of "President" of his "Council of State" and "Commander in Chief". But in totalitarian Cuba, Fidel Castro's absolute power is not based on titles.

The dictator's written declarations have the effect of totalitarian decrees, whether signed with the title "Commander in Chief" or "Comrade", or simply with his name. What we all need to be concentrating on is the urgent need for a democratic transition in Cuba, beginning with the liberation of all political prisoners, the legalization of all political parties, labor unions and the press, and the scheduling of free, multiparty elections. Let us not get confused with the dictator's titles or lack of them. For now, nothing has changed in totalitarian Cuba. It is time for the international community to unite to press for freedom for all the political prisoners and for free elections in Cuba."

Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ>

"The reign of Fidel Castro marked a brutal and dictatorial chapter for the Cuban people," said Flake. "Let's hope that his resignation opens a new chapter."

"Whether that new chapter will be open, however, largely depends on a new approach to Cuba by the U.S. Government. The U.S. embargo gave Fidel a tremendous advantage in terms of lengthening his tenure. Let's not give his successor the same advantage by keeping the embargo in place."

Congressman Flake, a critic of the U.S.'s current Cuba policy, believes that the most effective way to hasten democratic reforms in Cuba is to ease trade and travel restrictions currently imposed by the U.S.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE)

"With Castro's resignation, Cuba's darkest days could finally be coming to an end, opening up a new age of possibility for the Cuban people and Cuban-American relations. But a possibility is not a guarantee.

"Whether Raul Castro, or another, is named successor, we should not consider lifting the embargo until Cuba frees political prisoners, respects human rights and allows independent civil organizations. However, we should not sit back and wait for the successor to act; there are steps we should take now to support the Cuban people and to start to put in place a strong foundation for freedom and free enterprise.

"First, we should allow increased travel of Cuban Americans to the island for family or humanitarian visits. Second, we should expand family remittances from Cuban Americans to include extended family. Third, we should allow U.S.-based companies and non-profits to send remittances to Cubans to support small business, and we should establish an Enterprise Fund, like the ones we set up after the end of communism in Eastern Europe, to jump start small and medium-sized private enterprise. Finally, we must establish direct mail service to Cuba.

"The Cuban-American community has a lead role to play in these efforts. Together, we can build the kind of bright future Cuba's people deserve after decades in the dark."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT)

"Fidel Castro's welcome resignation provides a new opportunity to revisit our failed Cuba policies and put U.S.-Cuba relations on a new path," said Baucus.

"It is time to get our Cuba policy right for America's farmers and ranchers -- including those in my home state of Montana, who are ready to sell their goods to Cuban buyers -- and for families across the Florida Straits by beginning to ease trade and travel restrictions now."

Last summer, Baucus -- along with Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Representatives Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), introduced legislation to make it easier for U.S. farmers and ranchers to sell their world-class products to Cuba by easing restrictions on travel to and payment from Cuba.

Baucus held a hearing on the "Promoting American Agricultural and Medical Exports to Cuba Act of 2007" on December 11, 2007, and is working with colleagues in the Senate to move the bill forward this year.

An independent International Trade Commission study commissioned by Baucus found that removing U.S. export restrictions would increase the annual U.S. share of Cuba’s agriculture imports to as much as nearly 70 percent, representing an annual boost of over $300 million in U.S. agriculture sales.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons