Just like the Syrians and Iranians. Every time we talk with the people in charge they beat up on the opposition or continue to build bad things.

As for the US being held hostage by the Cuban expatriates in Florida, that may be so. But it still doesn't get past the fact that those in power in Cuba always had the means to make life better for Cubans and they did not. They always had the means to improve the Human Rights record and only did so when it suited them (then threw people back in jail after their aims were met).

Just remember that a large number of those in and out of the US government were previously advised by Anna Montes the DIAs chief adviser on Cuba. You know the Anna Montes. who spied for Cuba for over twenty years.

And let's not get all cuddly with Raul, who is as bad, if not worse, than his brother.
Gorbachev He's Not.

I mean, to call a policy a success, when it has failed miserably for over 40 years is beyond misguided, it is even beyond delusional.

But Cuba, which is about as much threat to America as a toy poodle... hey, we are drawing the line!

Moronic at best.

Millions of Americans fought (and 60,000+ died) in Vietnam, and yet we have normalized relations with them?

The containment policies for communism wasn't very effective when you consider the cost we had to pay for that narrowminded viewpoint. When Truman was president he decided that Stalin was a bum, and after the Churchill "Iron Curtain" speech sealed the fate of the Cold War era.

There is nothing wrong with re-establishing diplomatic relations with a Cuban government sans Fidel. Raul doesn't have much time for a 74yr old and that country needs to look ahead beyond the castro monopoly.

Last August he was for easing the travel restrictions part of the embargo.

When Fidel stepped down, he issued a press release including this statement.

If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades.

That statement would sure seem to be a pre-condition. Now maybe he issued the statement and then on further consideration changed his mind. Maybe its a Clintonesque parsing of the sentence that allows two seemingly incompatible statements be true at the same time. Or maybe he has decided that his original reaction captured in his initial statement doesn't play well with the democrats and being a bold candidate for change he quickly changed tack to align himself with the left side of the democratic party.

Fidel left office only because of old age and infirmity, rather than anything the US has done

Agreed. We pretty much agreed to disagree on this one.

The actual order of questions was reversed -- I did the write-up in journalistic style so the lede matched the headline -- or I'd have just kept pressing rather than doing the Kosovo question. He's very generous with his time and allows back-and-forths on these things but it's not a traditional interview, either.

My sense on Cuba is that politicians have their positions, often for historical and/or electoral reasons, and then do the best they can to make the facts fit their policy.

I'm not sure Obama is right, in that I'm not sure what we're going to accomplish talking with Castro, but I figure you've got to talk to the people in charge.

I noted that we had managed to have unconditional talks with the likes of Joe Stalin and Chairman Mao. While conceding that point, he thinks Raul is a particularly bad fellow...

Really, John? Raul Freaking Castro is a "particularly bad fellow" compared to Stalin and Mao? Really? I double-dog dare him to support that statement. I triple-dog dare any mainstream interviewer to do a follow-up on it.

McCain begged to differ, saying our policy was containment and it had worked. He noted that Cuba’s ability to expand their influence to far-flung places in Africa and even inside Latin America had been eliminated.

What utter crap. Cuba's not influencing many other places any more, but it's because of the collapse of the USSR (and resulting loss of their aegis) that rendered them moot, not anything we specifically did to Cuba. The fact that Fidel left office only because of old age and infirmity, rather than anything the US has done, pretty much puts the lie to McCain's entire pile.