A Third Choice for U.S. Cuba Policy

At the Summit of the Americas in April, President Obama made it clear he believes U.S.-Cuba relations can move "in a new direction." The United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere, he argued, must leave behind the "false choice" between complete isolation through a 47-year-old embargo or open engagement, which would coddle a dictator.

The countries need a third option, and Obama's vision provides a welcome alternative to the current situation: divided opinions in the hemisphere and no change on the island.
But the Obama administration has shown no real urgency in pursuing a new course. In fact, the rest of the hemisphere is moving on without Washington; U.S. inaction is creating controversy where there shouldn't be any.

Next week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the Organization of American States' General Assembly will discuss repealing a resolution that effectively kicked Cuba out of the organization in 1962. If the OAS approves the repeal, the conversation can turn to whether Cuba should be readmitted into the region's oldest diplomatic body. The repeal does not mean Cuba's automatic readmission -- in fact, Cuba doesn't seem particularly interested in rejoining the "rotten" and "shameless institution," as Fidel Castro recently called it.

Yet the mere suggestion of repealing the resolution has attracted criticism from the usual suspects in Washington. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign assistance, has threatened to take away U.S. funding for the OAS, which amounts to 60 percent of the organization's budget. In response to his concerns, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton distanced herself from the revocation at a hearing last week, saying she "cannot foresee how Cuba can be a part of the OAS" and adding that she would not support it.

But Obama should not only support the repeal -- he should have proposed it. As written, the resolution is a Cold War anachronism, justified by Cuba's connections with "the Sino-Soviet bloc" and, as it says, "the threat of military intervention in America on the part of the Soviet Union."

While Menendez would have us think the sky is -- once again -- falling, Obama's support would confirm that his administration is not going to be pinned down in another debate of false choices simply because the OAS is contemplating a change nearly 20 years after Soviet dissolution.

Such a step forward is precisely what OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza wants and has pursued for more than two years. He is not seeking Cuba's immediate return to the OAS, but rather an alteration in policy that allows the U.N. of the Western Hemisphere to think about how to engage Cuba.

Last week, Sen. Richard Lugar, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has favored direct talks between Washington and Havana, supported the idea of a repeal, stating that comprehensive and public discussions at the OAS would offer a historic opportunity to harmonize U.S. and Latin American positions. "While it is too early to allow Cuba back into the OAS outright ... a lifting of U.S. opposition to discussion ... would signal a preference for consultation, partnership and pragmatism," Lugar wrote in a March 30 letter to Obama.

Rejecting the repeal overtly or through inaction would be tantamount to business as usual. In 1994, OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria called for an end to Cuba's isolation and challenged the OAS to become the place where new thinking on Cuba could be shared, "so that the future will be debated in an impartial environment," as he put it. Clinton administration officials, weighing the political ramifications, subtly but unequivocally ended that effort.

Obama does not face the same potential political fallout that spooked Clinton because the new president owes less to the Cuban-American hard-liners than any of his predecessors. His changes in Cuba policy have been virtually free of controversy: the lifting of some restrictions on travel and money remittances, announced before the Summit; and the announcement last week of a return to immigration talks with the Cuban regime, which were suspended in 2003 by President Bush.

These initiatives have also been aided by the fact that there is barely anything new or risky about them -- they simply return U.S. policy to where it was before Bush. Indeed, according to Philip Brenner, a Cuba expert at American University's School of International Service, Obama's efforts regarding Cuba so far have been a mere "fulfillment of a campaign promise."

While hardly radical, Obama's support for the repeal of a 1962 resolution would be something new. Of course, reimagining Cuba policy will require much more, but he has to start somewhere.