I posted this as a comment in a pro-Hillary diary which claims "Hillary Clinton Deserves a Huge Amount of Credit For the U.S.-Cuba Breakthrough", and as evidence links to a Bloomberg piece quoting a couple Clinton flunkies (I guess that counts as proof these days). I'm copying it here because I am not at all sure the comment won't get me banned. I don't think it's bannable, but I usually stay out of pro-Hillary diaries simply because people there go nuts with flagging even measured criticism.

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If only this retroactive praise about silent, behind the scenes work to lift the embargo jived with her own words.  I mean, I understand that one can’t write explicitly about ongoing back channel discussions, but I would think one can (and should) convey the tenor of what one really believes and is aiming for, because that’s why we read biographies, to gain some insight into a person’s thoughts underneath the surface.  And yet HRC wrote in her memoir Hard Choices, which I read with much interest (though it’s rough going for anyone who actually knows anything about the region):

“Given what President Obama had said about moving past the stale debates of the Cold War it would be hypocritical of us to continue insisting that Cuba be kept out of the OAS for the reasons it was first suspended in 1962, ostensibly its adherence to ‘Marxism-Leninism’ and alignment ‘with the communist bloc.’ It would be more credible and accurate to focus on Cuba’s present-day human rights violations, which were incompatible with the OAS charter.”

“What if we agreed to lift the suspension, but with the condition that Cuba be reseated as a member only if it made enough democratic reforms to bring it in line with the charter? And, to expose the Castro brothers’ contempt for the OAS itself, why not require Cuba to formally request readmittance?”

In 2009 she went to Honduras with the explicit goal of preventing the lift of the OAS ban on Cuba, because the OAS was set to lift it since it was by now seen as an outdated relic of the Cold War.  She handily rebranded the ongoing hostility from “OMG COMMUNISTS” to “human rights violations”.  And it worked — Cuba is still not in the OAS, though its human rights violations, while lamentable, are no worse than those of other member states.
What should I believe, her own ever-changing words, praise by a couple of random people who have things to gain from stealing Obama’s thunder and ascribing it to her, or maybe the public record?

I think I’ll believe the record, which is in part supported by her own words.

1996 Bill Clinton signs the Helms-Burton act (no embargo lifting unless Cuba changes its regime).
2000 HRC speaks for medical shipments and allowing some travel, but against lifting the embargo.
2007 When Obama said he’d meet with Castro, she called that "irresponsible and, frankly, naive".  She doubles down on that in a December 2007 debate.
2008 During her Presidential campaign HRC continues to speak for maintaining the embargo.  She also said "now is not the time to consider wholesale or broad changes to our Cuba policy".
2009 HRC convinces the OAS to keep Cuba out (see above quotes from her book).
2009 The Obama administration relaxes travel restrictions for Cuban Americans.
2011 Just to put all of this into an international perspective, since the US generally ignores that:  the UN General Assembly condemned the US embargo for the 19th time, and with a vast majority (188 out of 193 countries for, 3 abstentions, the US and Israel against).
2011 The Obama administration allows some US academics and missionaries to travel to Cuba.
2013 HRC writes in Hard Choices: "Near the end of my tenure, I recommended to President Obama that he take another look at our embargo. It wasn’t achieving its goals, and it was holding back our broader agenda across Latin America. After twenty years of observing and dealing with the U.S.-Cuba relationship, I thought we should shift the onus onto the Castros to explain why they remained undemocratic and abusive."
2014 After Hard Choices is published, she says in an interview: “And I do believe, however, that shifting the onus onto the Castros will not end the embargo until after they're gone.”
2014 In December Obama and Raúl Castro reestablish diplomatic relations.
2015 In July Obama urges Congress to repeal the embargo.  Embassies reopen in Havana and Washington DC.  In a speech later that month, HRC says she supports the President.

So, that makes it 8 years of evolution from the point of Obama talking about approaching Cuba in order to establish better relations, which she was adamantly against at the time, to her supporting a lift of the embargo.  Obama wanted a change in relations years before she did, and he talked about lifting the embargo before she did.  I find it sorta amusing that in Hard Choices she implies it was her pushing him towards it, when we know he already was in favor of it in 2007.  I don’t think he needed pushing, and I see no evidence in the public record that she did; he drove the agenda.

It’s Obama’s thunder.  Since she has evolved, it’s probably reasonable to expect she’ll now continue the policy, but since she is also always firmly on the side of the US affecting regime change, I’m not so sure what she’ll do.  I expect continued tinkering around the edges, primarily to allow US business interests to gain a further foothold (this has already started), while running the clock out on Castro.  But I consider it an illusion to think Cuba’s regime will change when Castro retires (which he says he’ll do in 2018).  There are successors waiting in the wings.  Here’s hoping she will actually work to lift the embargo anyway — IMO normalization has in the long run a higher chance of easing human rights abuses.  While there is no guarantee of that, at the very last the lives of Cuban citizens overall will improve, and that’s important.

In 2014 a CNN poll found that even among Cuban Americans, 52% were in favor of lifting the embargo entirely.

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There's more pointing to her being not in favor of thawing anything much past travel restrictions and some humanitarian aid, but I didn't want to go into areas that are more speculative.

It's not that I am particularly enamored with Obama's actions on Cuba; much too slow, and even though she takes credit in her book for the OAS manipulation, at the very least he signed off on that as well. But I find her sudden credit-taking for thawing of relations with Cuba, conveniently in time for the election, offensive. IMO she had maybe a smidgen more to do with it than she had with the Northern Ireland peace process. It's her usual MO of exaggerating her foreign policy accomplishments during a campaign.