Cuba Off The Terrorism List

I'm quoted in this story about the decision to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. This is one of those rare issues where I write about some unchanging thing for years and then it actually changes in a common sense direction.

I think John Kerry made a good point:

While the United States has had, and continues to have, significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these concerns and disagreements fall outside of the criteria for designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. 

This is not endorsing the Cuban dictatorship, or anything it does. It's just saying the years where Cuba actively supported terrorist groups are in the past. It was labeled a state sponsor in 1982 and the world is a very different place. Now this opens up more avenues for Cuba to get financing, which in turn will help its private sector, and that is precisely what the U.S. should want.