The Cuban Embargo: Punishing the Children for the Sins of the Father
             The key to understanding the foreign policy of a nation state is understanding that
             state's national interest. The key to successful foreign policy is, as Henry Kissinger
             stated in 1998, defining "an achievable objective". Thus United States policy towards
             Cuba fails because it neglects these two key ingredients of foreign policy. The US
             embargo of Cuba is four decades old and no longer serves the country's national interest,
             rather it has proven to be a economic and political hindrance for the US. The embargo
             also falls short in terms of having an achievable goal, since many of the requests that
             embargo legislation calls for are simply not within the ability of the Cuban state. By
             examining the sanctions and their economic, political, and humanitarian affect on both
             the Us and Cuba a strong case can be made for a revision of US policy.
             US policy towards Cuba and the government of Fidel Castro has, since the
             1960's, been a policy based on the objectives of removing Castro, instituting a
             democratic system, and gaining reparations for confiscated US holdings. The initial
             sanctions were instituted because the US considered the close proximity of a communist
             state to be a national security threat, and also because Castro's regime confiscated US
             holdings, and thus US control, on the island. By enacting a policy that unilaterally cut
             Cuba off from economic and political contact with the US, the US felt that it could force
             Castro from power. In the decades since the embargo's conception legislation has been
             created to even further enforce these concepts. In 1992 Congress passed the Cuban
             Democracy Act, which prohibited US subsidiaries abroad from having business relations
             with Cuba (Ratliff and Fontaine 22). This law pushed Cuban profits even further from
             the grasp of US ...