In December, the Treasury Department announced that it would deny permission for a Cuban team to participate in the World Baseball Classic to be played in March in the United States, including Puerto Rico, and in Japan. Cuba, as the present Olympic champion, is, of course, expected to participate. In fact, if it does not, the games would be considered something of a farce.

Why can Cuba not participate? Because, according to the Treasury Department, that would violate U.S. laws prohibiting commercial transactions with Cuba or Cuban nationals, i.e., because Cuba might earn money from the games, thus violating the embargo.

But surely there are ways through these regulations. A Cuba national team played in Baltimore against the Orioles in 1999, after all. And other Cuban athletic teams have occasionally managed to play in the U.S.

But clearly, there's no will on the part of the Bush administration to find a solution in this case -- even the one staring them in the face: Cuba announced that it would forego any earnings from the games; it said it would donate any proceeds to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

This may be embarrassing to the Bush administration, which has been widely criticized for fumbling hurricane relief and not doing nearly enough to help victims on the Gulf Coast.

The Cuban offer nonetheless effectively removes any legitimate reason to deny a license to the Cuban team. The organizers of the Classic have filed a new request for a license, noting that Cuba will earn nothing from the games.

So far, however, Treasury has not changed its decision, and hard-line Cuban-American congressmen in Florida, such as Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, are insisting that Cuba not be allowed to participate.

International baseball representatives are outraged. Aldo Notari, the president of the International Federation, has suggested that all teams stand in solidarity with Cuba and not play unless the Cuban team is permitted to play also. The Puerto Rican Federation of Amateur Baseball has said that Puerto Rico will not host any games and that the Puerto Rican team won't participate if Cuba is denied. Venezuela has proposed that given this U.S. attitude, some of the games be played in Venezuela and perhaps in Canada.

In short, unless Treasury backs down, the games may be seriously disrupted or not held at all.

How petty and unsportsmanlike all this makes us appear in the eyes of the world. There was a time, of course, when the U.S. followed a strict policy of not mixing politics and sports -- of leaving sports as an area in which Americans could compete in a civilized way even with the citizens of countries with which the U.S. had serious disagreements. It is a policy from which we never should have strayed and to which we should return without reservations.

Further, Peter Ueberroth, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, points out that highly questionable decisions such as this one can negatively affect the future bids of U.S. cities to host Olympic events. The Treasury decision, he insists, should be reversed.

Finally, we should ask ourselves, what possible harm could come of allowing Cuban participation? Some threat to U.S. security? Hardly! And on the other side, what do we gain by saying no? Absolutely nothing.

A number of hard-line Cuban exiles applaud denial of the license as a sign of solidarity with the Cuban people. But that simply shows how out of touch they are with the attitudes of Cubans on the island. Whatever their feelings about their government, the vast majority of Cubans are baseball fans who avidly follow their local teams and are fiercely proud of their national team. They, more than anyone, want that team to play in the World Baseball Classic. If it does not, they will be deeply disappointed. Why should we wish to cause that?

We only embarrass ourselves.