The revolution's over

What does it take to prevent the U.S. government from changing a failed foreign policy? In the case of Cuba, just one politically mobilized ethnic lobby.

Way back in 1961, the Kennedy administration imposed an embargo on trade with Cuba in an effort to bring down the new revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. But Castro is still in power and Cuba is isolated only from the U.S.

You'd think a failure like that would convince foreign policy makers to end the embargo. But, alas, the powerful Cuban-American lobby -- dominated by the Cuban-American National Foundation -- remains a serious force in American politics long after the other Cold War-era ethnic lobbies have faded from the scene. It's well funded by the country's most affluent Hispanic minority community, it controls a voting bloc concentrated in two politically important states -- Florida (Miami) and New Jersey (Union City) -- and its leaders have enjoyed privileged access to the highest reaches of the U.S. intelligence agencies.

But after four decades, some of these political assets are wearing thin. Contributions to the CANF's Free Cuba PAC have declined in recent elections. The voting bloc is slowly eroding because younger Cuban Americans, middle class and assimilated, typically care a lot less about Cuba than their parents. Communist Cuba looks less like a national security threat than an anachronism to most Americans. Castro's threadbare revolutionary Cuba even has a retro '60s appeal for jaded travelers. And now that jobs in the intelligence community are safe thanks to the war on terrorism, the threat from Cuba can be retired.

Despite the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the embargo was tightened twice in the '90s. The 1992 Cuban Democracy Act prohibits foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. The 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, commonly called the Helms-Burton Act, gives Americans the right to sue international investors in Cuba who made use of U.S.-owned properties expropriated by the Cuban government. Helms-Burton aroused such intense opposition from U.S. allies who trade with Cuba that Congress gave the president a waiver under Title III of the Act to suspend the right to sue. Bill Clinton and now George W. Bush have signed the requisite waivers every time the six-month deadline has rolled around. The latest waiver expires Jan. 31, and Bush can be counted upon to sign a new one.

Then there's the rank hypocrisy of awarding Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to China while continuing the embargo against Cuba when the scale of human rights violations in China dwarf those in Cuba. Castro's government imprisons several hundred political prisoners. China imprisons tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, dozens of who have died from torture or mistreatment while in custody. China's occupation of Tibet has made Tibetans a minority in their own country. And more than 200 democracy activists are still imprisoned in China for their activities during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Proponents of free trade with China insist that increased interaction with the U.S. will create the conditions needed for democratization. If that works for China, then it ought to work for Cuba as well.

That the U.S. is punishing a small country for the sort of behavior it ignores in a superpower certainly looks like big power bullying to the rest of the planet. In 2001, the U.N. General Assembly voted 167-3 to urge the United States to end the embargo.

Ending the embargo would not solve Cuba's economic problems, but the infusion of technology, capital and goods from the U.S. would help. The inevitable transition from communism to liberalism won't be any easier in Cuba than it was in Eastern Europe. But ending the embargo now would mean a softer landing for many Cubans. And that would facilitate reconciliation with their neighbors to the north.

John Hickman teaches politics at Berry College.