ABSTRACT
The Cuba policy of the United States has failed to achieve any of its objectives. Cuba's government has withstood the direct US attacks on it: invasion, sabotage, and assassination attempts. The economic embargo has made the average Cuban's life more difficult, but it has neither destroyed the economy nor stopped the Cubans from developing their country. The policy threatens US interests with respect to its allies. It infects domestic US politics with a cold war emotionalism, which has the dangerous potential to increase tension in the Third World: When the United States defines regional or North-South problems as aspects of an East-West conflict, it makes a wider war all the more likely. US policy toward Cuba has failed because its objectives are inconsistent with basic US values and interests. The United States has stood for honesty and the rule of law, for pluralism and tolerance, and for peace and the diplomatic resolution of conflicts.
