While the President's action yesterday wasn't on my radar screen as something that needed doing, it makes sense to me and shows the President is paying attention to things that he should be paying attention to.
Cuba is a ward of Russia and Venezuela. With the plunge in oil prices, those two countries are becoming basket cases. 54 years of keeping Cuba isolated haven't worked because we are the only country in the world who has been trying to keep Cuba isolated. But the U.S. is the country that can do the most to help Cuba without there being any flow of funds from the taxpayer.
Millions of Americans would like to travel to Cuba. Thousands would like to smoke Cuban cigars (JFK ordered 1200 Cuban cigars right before he imposed the embargo and started the policy of isolation). Market economics will bring Cuba forward and force the adaptation of the communist regime to a more modern capitalist model. And I am reasonably sure that as the Castro brothers pass from this world, younger leaders will be pressured to open up the government to the dynamism that the success of Cuban Americans shows is possible for Cuba.
54 years of policy failure sure argues for some change in policy. I would argue that the War on Drugs has been a complete and utter failure, and it is time for some type of legalization that will take the money out of the hands of gangs that cause such violence in inner cities, Mexico, and Central America. It is drug money that now supports the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Success there would be much easier if poppies weren't the primary crop. But the War on Drugs has not yet been a failure for even 50 years as I believe it was started by Richard Nixon and will not reach it's 50th birthday until 2019 or so. So if 54 years is our standard for revisiting failed policies, then it will be another 10 years or so before the War on Drugs is reviewed.
And if we can have diplomatic and trade relations with Vietnam, why shouldn't we have them with Cuba. I really don't see a difference.
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