(CNN) -- In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States." Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami. The Obama administration, he said, wanted "to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms ... in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests." Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest, it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.
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Louis Perez: U.S. administration has said Cuban democracy is U.S.'s "national interest"
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If President Obama wants change in Cuba, he must lift embargo, he says
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While struggling to survive, he says, Cubans have no energy for political reform
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Perez: Lifting embargo would deny Cuba leaders U.S. policy as an excuse
Ending the embargo would also imply respect for the Cuban people, an acknowledgment that they have the vision and vitality to enact needed reforms, and that transition in Cuba, whatever form it may take, is wholly a @placeholder affair.