Even as the U.S. struggles to conclude its war with Iran, it’s stumbling toward an equally ill-conceived conflict in Cuba. If the White House wants to avoid another strategic morass, it needs to adjust course soon.

Since the successful January raid to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, the U.S. has steadily intensified a campaign to bring change to Havana, too.

It cut off critical oil shipments from Venezuela, drying up fuel supplies and crippling Cuba’s already shaky economy. Threats of new sanctions have forced some foreign businesses to suspend local operations. The Pentagon has deployed warships near the island and launched spy planes overhead to remind its leaders how vulnerable they are. The murder indictment of 95-year-old former president Raul Castro has fueled fears of a military intervention to detain him.

The Cuban government overseen for decades by Raul and his more charismatic brother Fidel deserves little sympathy. It has repressed dissent, strangled the economy while enriching cronies, flirted with U.S. adversaries Russia and China, and driven roughly 10% of the population to flee the island since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the decades-old U.S. embargo has largely cut off Cuba’s biggest potential source of imports, exports and investment, the regime has bungled its few opportunities to ease tensions. Most Cubans are unlikely to mourn its passing.

The White House’s more reasonable demands — to open up the economy more fully to private enterprise, loosen restrictions on information flows and release political prisoners — are hard to argue against. Accepting them would benefit the Cuban people and open the door for the U.S. to aid in the country’s recovery.

Yet the administration has undercut its own case with fluctuating and unclear demands, bellicose threats and condescending predictions of Cuba’s future vassal status — all of which have stiffened resistance in Havana.

If the regime remains defiant, the risk is that all this tough talk backs the White House into a corner. Hawks are already arguing for limited airstrikes to shock Cuban leaders into reform. If that doesn’t work — and there’s little evidence it would — there will be pressure to go further and put American boots on the ground.

The U.S. has laid none of the groundwork, practical or political, for such an operation. Nor is it clear the administration is prepared if its campaign does accelerate the collapse of the Cuban state.

The task of installing new leaders, preventing or managing an outflow of migrants, reestablishing security, restoring services, and rebuilding the shattered economy would be immense. It would drain resources, suck up a good portion of the president’s remaining term and further distract the U.S. military from more important strategic challenges.

Putting Cuba on a path to change will require fewer sticks and more carrots, so regime figures can see some value in liberalization. To start, the administration should narrow its minimum demands: For instance, it could pledge not to attack the island or seek the government’s overthrow in exchange for restrictions on Chinese and Russian intelligence activities.

Then the U.S. needs to guide Cuban leaders toward a plausible offramp from the current standoff. The White House should balance its push for privatization reforms with limited but clear sanctions relief, so that Cuban entrepreneurs can access the credit and goods they need to build up their businesses.

It should also restore the flow of oil to the island and boost humanitarian aid to address the crisis its restrictions have caused. A period of stability and trust-building should make further reforms more palatable.

A more moderate course will no doubt infuriate many politically influential exiles in Miami. Yet nearly seven decades of confrontation have done little to help the Cuban people. It’s worth trying another path.

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The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs.

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