Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) have jointly written a compelling case to end the travel ban for all Americans desiring to go to Cuba.
In fact, their piece, titled "Lift the Ban -- Let Americans Visit Cuba" really calls for ending travel restrictions on Americans going anywhere since Cuba is the only place in the world where America's democratic government restricts the travel freedom of its citizens.
It is a remarkable but true fact that the US government cannot stop regular Americans from traveling to North Korea, Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Congo, or any other complicated place in the world -- except the one spot where the Cold War still freezes time -- Cuba.
The Lugar-Berman piece reflects a sensible bipartisan realism about the fact that five decades of an embargo have dramatically hurt US interests and have only perpetuated a dysfunctional status quo in US-Cuba relations.
President Obama constantly calls for serious bipartisanship in national security matters -- and he can pluck this Lugar-Berman prize off the tree easily if he has the will (and time on his overcrowded calendar). The House bill to end the travel ban to Cuba has been led by Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA) on the Dem side and Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who often says that it's supposed to be Communist governments, not Democratic ones, that impose restrictions on their citizen's choices to travel. The House Bill now has 180 cosponsors comprised of both Republicans and Democrats.
The companion Senate bill has 34 Senate cosponsors. Informal whip counts put the House bill at 205 votes -- within striking distance of the 218 needed, and between 61-64 in the Senate.
But thus far Barack Obama's team continues to condition any further openings to Cuba with a requirement that Cuba begin to demonstrate key political reforms on top of the fact that Obama's presidency has done the ironic thing of opening up travel for a "class" of Americans (those with Cuban relatives) while excluding all other Americans from that legal privilege -- I would actually say, "legal right". This exclusion of some but not all is something Obama should not want too long on his legacy sheet.
Lugar and Berman open:
U.S. law lets American citizens travel to any country on earth, friend or foe -- with one exception: Cuba. It's time for us to scrap this anachronistic ban, imposed during one of the chilliest periods of the Cold War.Legislation to abolish restrictions on travel to Cuba has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. And on Thursday the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing examining the rationale for the travel ban.
This ban has prevented contact between Cubans and ordinary Americans, who serve as ambassadors for the democratic values we hold dear. Such contact would help break Havana's chokehold on information about the outside world. And it would contribute to improving the image of the United States, particularly in Latin America, where the U.S. embargo on Cuba remains a centerpiece of anti-Washington grievances.
While opponents argue that repealing the travel ban would indicate approval of the Cuban human rights record, many human rights organizations -- among them Freedom House and Human Rights Watch -- have called for abolishing travel restrictions.
They go on to make the same point, namely " "isolation from outside visitors only strengthens the Castro regime," that former AEI neoconservative staffer and current Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw "Radek" Sikorski made in his own 2005 essay on Cuba in National Review. Bush Institute for Public Policy Director and former G.W. Bush administration Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James Glassman has also argued that the travel ban and embargo undermine American interests.
It is through people to people exchange that both Cubans and Americans will become exposed to each other's worlds and political realities. They argue that more financial flow inside Cuba will strengthen the underground economy, a source of independence and potential liberalism inside Cuba.
Berman and Lugar state flat out with regard to the notion that restricting US travel to Cuba generates any leverage at all after five decades of failure on this track: "Conditionality is not leverage in this case."
The White House National Security Council staff reading this really should articulate a believable counter-point to Senator Lugar's and Chairman Berman's compelling argument if it is going to continue to 'cling to conditionality' before making further moves. What is the empirical basis for believing that putting Cuban responses before American interests will have any impact or makes sense?
Others who Barack Obama respects -- including former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State and Treasury George P. Shultz -- have said that both the travel ban and the embargo make no sense as foreign policy. Shultz has called the travel ban "lunacy".
There are not many occasions when there is such a large squad of Democrats and Republicans in the same space.
Howard Berman is on board. Richard Lugar is on board. Many others are as well. Call John Kerry -- and I bet he's on board too.
It's the only course that ultimately makes sense. As David Rothkopf said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting just before this past year's Summit of the Americas, US-Cuba relations are the "Edsel of US foreign policy."
It's time for Barack Obama to wake up on this and realize that he and his team are the outliers in a hefty and healthy bipartisan move in the Latin America portfolio.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Follow Steve Clemons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SCClemons
Evelyn Leopold: Cuban Vote at UN: "Here We Go Again"
For the 18th consecutive year, the General Assembly condemned the US embargo against Cuba. But this was the first vote since President Obama took office, and everyone listened for hints of change.
that is just too much of a tease.
1) First, the votes won't be there.
2) Second, if it ever passed, Castro would do everything to derail it. He NEEDS that ban politically--the "excuse" for his failures. And why, with Americans visiting, will things change there? Especially since Europeans and others, from democracies, have been visiting for years, and it's still a freedomless hellhole? Is there something magical about American tourists?
3) Surprised the Senators are more concerned about one country that Americans can't visit, but not too concerned about the millions of Cubans who can't visit ANYWHERE.
4) American companies can't do business there under the Castros--it's a communist dictatorship, remember? And the embargo is only about giving Cuba U.S. credit, and the ability to purchase things they can't afford to pay for. (Just ask any of the dozens of countries who've been burned to the tune of billions.) And who gets stuck with the bill? The American taxpayer.
5) There's nothing in it for the U.S. to help Cuba as a charity case, with its current political situation, and Obama is playing it right . What's the benefit to us?
6) There's also the matter of hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) in claims of Cuban-American exiles who lost property and the lives of loved ones, or don't they matter? Or is it okay to keep referring to them in derogatory terms, such as the Miami Miafi, for continuing to fight for democracy and justice in their homeland?
Pitiful.
Jeez it's not like our sanctions have done anything to change the political situation in cuba for 50 years.
A lesson Obama might want to heed when thinking about Iran
Cuba = no oil, no money = NOT OK
Iraq = oil = OK
China = money = OK
The whole policy doesn't make any real sense... unless of course, you remember that 10 million dollars from the hard-liners in Fla have gone to campaign contributions to members of congress.
The embargo hasn't worked for 50 years. Why don't we try something else?