Unless you’re a South Florida exile politician or Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, you had to welcome the news that direct, twice-weekly charter flights from Tampa to Havana will begin next month. It will accommodate the 80,000 Cuban-Americans living in the Tampa Bay area. It will also boost international travel, however modest initially, for Tampa International Airport.
“We start with baby steps,” underscored Tessie Aral, president of ABC Charters, which has been approved for Tampa-to-Havana flights.
Indeed, the travel is still largely limited to families and cultural, religious , educational and medical groups. General purpose tourist visas remain a violation of U.S. law.
But just as with the economic embargo, limited American travel to Cuba is still with us — a frustrating, time-warp revisitation of the Cold War geopolitics of the early 1960s.
Those entrenched, counterproductive policies can’t be undone as easily as an executive order modifying some travel restrictions. But here’s another step — and not exactly a “baby” one — that the Obama Administration could implement immediately. Take Cuba off America’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The one it shares, inexplicably enough, with Syria, Sudan and Iran.
That Cuba remains on this notorious short list (since 1982) along with garden variety, Middle East powder kegs is unfathomable. North Korea doesn’t even warrant inclusion. Nor Somalia; obviously piracy and being a safe haven for al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab terrorists doesn’t count.
The Obama Administration continues to give incremental progress a bad name when it comes to improving relations with Cuba — and doing what’s in the best interest of this country and this state. We have serious civilizational enemies in the world — as well as economic adversaries. Cuba is neither. It remains a foreign policy atavism fed by the agenda-driven pols from the sovereign state of South Florida.
You can’t blame Cuba remaining on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list on George W. Bush.