Obama’s trip to Cuba is about (American) values

A Newark Star-Ledger Editorial

President Obama announced that he is making his historic trip to Cuba on March 21, and immediately triggered a predictable avalanche of scorn from those who claim he is “legitimizing a repressive regime.”

Wait until his detractors find out the Rolling Stones and Tampa Bay Rays are repudiating American values with their own visits to Havana that same week – two more examples that it is no longer 1962.

The fact is, the landscape – geopolitical or otherwise – needs this kind of change. For a half-century, there has been unremitting hostility between the U.S. and the island nation, and decades of enmity and embargoes have failed to displace the Castro dictatorship and had little effect on Cuba’s human rights policy.

The president restored relations, kicking off an era of cautious engagement, but the visit is a crucial turning point. He has already granted concessions in travel, finance, and commerce in good faith. The face-to-face meeting with Raul Castro will be the time to set the ground rules for the thaw going forward.

It won’t sit well with everybody. Sen. Robert Menendez showed that Thursday, when he accused the president of “prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term American values.”

It’s hard to know which values he refers to. We’re all for freedom, but the embargo hasn’t exactly fostered liberty.

And preaching about values is just American sanctimony: The U.S. has sponsored CIA-trained terrorists to blow up Cuban passenger jets, bomb Cuban hotels, orchestrate Cuban invasions, and attempts to kill Cuba’s president.

Let’s acknowledge that before we claim superiority in this relationship.

It’s time for a reset, and Obama is right to put his finger on that particular button. There will be a lot to talk about on March 21.

(From the Newark Star Ledger)