By Jim Lobe* WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (IPS) - Monday's call by Sen. Richard Lugar for a major re-assessment of Washington's nearly half-century effort to isolate Cuba increases the likelihood that U.S. President Barack Obama will make substantial changes in policy toward Havana beyond those he promised during his election campaign, according to experts here. "What's significant is that this is the senior statesman for foreign policy in the Republican Party, someone who doesn't have a long track record of advocating for changes in Cuba policy, who has decided to come out and really put his stamp on this issue by saying that the U.S. embargo doesn't favour our national interest," said Daniel Erickson, a Cuba specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank here. "The fact is that Lugar has pre-empted Obama with his own proposals for changing the policy and in so doing creates a context that is much more favourable to changing the policy beyond the narrow of issue of lifting restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances" to the island, added Erickson, author of 'The Cuba Wars,' a recently published book on U.S.-Cuban relations.