Castro Reactions

Obama says:

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. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.

You would think that this formula would be the very height of cautious, go-it-slowism with regard to Cuba. 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? And yet, our policies are so screwed up that this counts as a progressive measure. Our stated, exil-driven policy regards getting back the property exiles and US corporations lost decades ago as an "essential condition for the full resumption of economic and diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba."