Kinsley: Cuba Policy Hasn't Just Failed—It's Backfired

It's time—actually it's way overdue—for America to admit that its Cuba policy simply hasn't worked, writes Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post. The US has been "unrelentingly hostile" to Havana, but to what end? Communism has collapsed just about everywhere else, but here it survives "unreformed and unapologetic." We've used the carrot and stick with other totalitarian regimes, but here it's been all stick, to no avail. Lift the embargo already.

"Can anyone defend it?" Kinsley writes. "In recent years, the closest thing to a defense has been, 'Wait, wait, just a bit longer! He's almost gone.' Well now he—Fidel—is gone, more or less. And nothing has changed, except that our embargo makes us look more ridiculous and powerless than ever. The small changes President Obama announced this week will help. But abandoning the embargo as a proven failure would help more." (More Cuba stories.)