The Bush administration is convinced that tightening the economic noose on Cubans will spur a revolt against Fidel Castro's dictatorship. But if that were the case, then Cuba would have been liberated decades ago.

History tells us that policies of isolation and economic strangulation won't dislodge the Castro brothers. They only impose hardship on ordinary people, ultimately sparking desperate dashes across the Florida Straits.

The most recent example is the chaos in the Cuban economy in the early 1990s. Cubans paid the price for decades of financial mismanagement when the Soviet Union unraveled and the island's Cold War handouts from Moscow stopped.

To push Castro over the edge, in 1992 the first President Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act, which barred trade with Cuba by U.S. corporate subsidiaries in other countries and banned ships that call at Cuban ports from entering U.S. ports for six months.

Did that send the Castro brothers packing to the mountains from which they came? No, but a rafter crisis two years later inundated the Guantanamo Naval Base with thousands of people seeking asylum.

Now, they're at it again.

Convinced the Castro government is in its last days -- as it has been reported to be for the past 45 years -- the current Bush administration has imposed restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba.

The rules will curtail all kinds of contact between Americans and Cubans. But they also place significant hardships on Cuban-Americans, who have usually been exempt from Washington's get-tough-with-Cuba measures.

As of July 1, Cuban-Americans can only visit loved ones once every three years and may only wire money to their closest relatives.

The rules have upset the mango cart, not in Cuba, but at home. They have created deep divisions within South Florida's Cuban-American community, including the political establishment.

Cuban-American Republican lawmakers, and party mainstays, are now embroiled in a verbal slugfest with key lobbying groups. The most prominent of these organizations is the Cuban American National Foundation, which since its founding in the early 1980s enjoyed cozy relations with the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations.

CANF has issued a statement opposing the travel and remittance rules. The lobbying group says Cubans in the United States have a right and duty to help their relatives, Marxist government or not. CANF also wants the U.S. government to supply money for "civil society" efforts in Cuba, including dissident groups advocating political and economic reform, which Cuban-American hardliners petulantly dismiss as Castro lackeys.

CANF's break with the traditional "get-tough" stances took political courage, and it has come at a price. Hardliners in the community have accused the organization of going "soft" and betraying Old Guard policies.

That's nonsense.

If anything, CANF reflects the more realistic, moderate views within the Cuban-American community. The organization's leaders understand that Cuba's future leadership resides in Cuba, not Little Havana. And they know that transitioning Cuba from decades of communist mismanagement will take a great effort that must include a wide array of factions.

Which is why U.S. policy today should be going in a different direction. Instead of isolating Cubans from Cuban-Americans and other U.S. citizens, it should be exploring creative ways to achieve greater engagement.

Simply reversing the administration's ill-advised policies isn't enough, however. A sound Cuba policy requires more than the pre-July 1 status quo.

U.S. diplomacy must stop being singularly obsessed with the Castros. It must refocus on the other 11 million people who live on the island.

A more productive policy would put faith in the power and allure of American values and ideals. It would increase America's influence by encouraging exchanges of information and know-how in politics, economics, culture and society.

It would permit Americans to identify people and institutions that could play a leading role in a transition to democracy and free enterprise. It would give Cubans a better idea of what America stands for in an age when the United States reigns as the only superpower in a world threatened by terrorism and economic uncertainty.

A step in this direction would be lifting the ban on travel to Cuba. It must end so that any U.S. citizen, regardless of whether he or she was born in Oregon or Oriente, may enter and exit the island on an equal footing. That means no discriminatory policies at either end, such as limits on dollars spent by Americans, or the extra visas or passports the Cuban government now demands for Cuban-Americans.

Skeptics insist Castro will not accept those conditions. Fine, but let him be the one to reject them rather than Washington appearing to be the obstacle.

Castro's biggest political miscalculation was betting back in 1959 that the Soviet Union's brand of communism would outlast American freedom and enterprise. His hardline opponents across South Florida shouldn't be betting on Castro's ability to outlast freedom forever, either.

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