The United States’ policy towards Cuba has failed.

So says US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And she should be in a good position to know, as her husband presided over this failing policy for eight years.

Meanwhile equally ailing and failing Fidel Castro wants the USA to go even further:

Castro responded to the measures in an online column Monday night. The ailing former president wrote that the U.S. had announced the repeal of "several hateful restrictions," but had stopped short of real change.

"Of the blockade, which is the cruelest of measures, not a word was uttered," he wrote.

Thus officially endeth Castroism – if it has been ‘cruel’ on the part of the USA to deny Cuba some fruits of market economics, how cruel has it been of Castro to pile on the one-party socialism at home and make everything far worse for ordinary Cubans?

Maybe it will fall to a Democrat President to lift all the US measures against Cuba’s communists, a Democrat President having imposed most of them in the first place.

In what sense has the former policy in fact failed?

It did not bring about a quick change of heart or regime in Cuba. But that has been obvious for decades. Thereafter it came to stand as a mainly symbolic US position, maintained for US domestic reasons. It must have been a resounding success, as neither Republicans nor Democrats did much other than tinker with it, despite (or because of?) its huge international unpopularity.

I have never seen any sense in this embargo. If there was any strong political logic in it while the USSR was playing geostrategic games, the end of Soviet rule left it looking anomalous if not ridiculous. Cuba is a tiny target for US foreign policy. Better to flood the place with international access/influence and thereby create internal Contradictions, which after all is what helped erode Soviet Communism.

The wider issues?

Boycotts and sanctions are almost always counter-productive (if what you want is reasonably likely and reasonably speedy regime change or at least regime-loosening), since they tend to strengthen the worst isolationist/criminal elements in the country concerned.

Plus as the Cuban case shows, once these measures are in place it gets tricky to find a good political moment to lift them without losing face. President Obama still has some Star Quality, so can get away with it.

Much better is to decide bluntly what you want to achieve – that leader/regime must come to an end or at least moderate his/its behaviour – then look carefully in the diplomatic tool-box to find the kit needed to increase the chances of that outcome happening.

See eg the EU’s flailing around with Belarus. What was it aiming to achieve? Did the EU want to subvert the Lukashenko regime? Make life tough for Russia? Roll out ‘European values’ to Belarus? The EU never made its mind up.

After long years of crossly and confusingly avoiding any serious contact with the Belarus top leadership in general and President Lukashenko in particular, the European Union has just given up and lumbered off in favour of ‘pragmatic engagement’. A perverse but probably not unwise EU response to Russia’s Georgia adventures? And better no real policy than a phoney or incoherent one?

If you really want a total policy failure where Cuba is concerned, again look at EU policy.

Unable to take a view on the simple proposition "Cuba needs free and fair elections asap, and the EU will invest serious resources to help that happen", EU member states have squabbled inconclusively with each other and achieved nothing at all, other than appearing to many Cuban democrats to be too damned cosy with the communist regime – siding squarely with the past, not the future.

Finally, even if Americans can now expect to travel freely to Cuba, can Cubans likewise expect to be free to go to the USA?

Those Americans who do visit Cuba can heave a huge sigh of relief as they land in Havana. They will have left behind the odious inefficient US private health care system and if need arises can expect to benefit from the marvellous Cuban version.

Hurrah.