Kristof hits the bulls-eye again:

And when dictatorships crumbled in places like Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil, Spain and Portugal, it was because growing wealth nurtured a middle class, not because of sanctions.

Why fight planned economies with a planned economic policy? In the case of South Africa the regime was politically and socially repressive, that's why economic sanctions worked. Kristof is echoing my feeling: unleash the forces of capitalism against the planned economies of the world.

Also, note that the title of the article, Our Man in Havana, is taken from the name of a Graham Greene book. Graham Greene is the journalist's author, having written books about battle-toughened correspondents all over the world. He also wrote The Quiet American, which I read while working at Borders last year after I heard that the movie was good. It's a good story wrapped around a European perspective on world affairs.