America and Cuba - Deal ends a half century of failure

The announcement, more than half a century and 11 White House presidents in the making, that Barack Obama has decided that America will end its aggressive economic isolation of Cuba and restore diplomatic relations, ends a tyranny that diminished America by sustaining poverty— and facilitating human rights abuses in Cuba — is a victory for pragmatic decency and considerable political courage.

That it came after more than a year of secret negotiations involving the increasingly influential and impressive Pope Francis shows — yet again — that international conflicts can only be resolved when societies who imagine themselves enemies come together to break free from a dysfunctional, fractured, and embittered past.

That Chilean foreign minister, Heraldo Munoz, hailed it as “the beginning of the end of the Cold War in the Americas”, adds a layer of powerful irony to the breakthrough.

Just as America and Cuba decide to work together to bridge differences, Europe and Russia seem on the verge of a renewed Cold War as President Vladimir Putin struggles with an imploding economy and collapsing oil prices.

Speaking at his end-of-year news conference, he blamed “outside factors” for the ruble crashing to an all-time low and accused the US and EU of conspiring to weaken Russia.

Hardly a narrative to inspire confidence among citizens in the old Soviet Pact satellite countries, much less Europe.

America has never been shy about challenging — or toppling — governments, elected or otherwise, in its immediate sphere of influence, so Mr Obama’s decision to go to the very limit allowed by a 1996 law imposing stiff sanctions on Cuba in the pursuit of regime change may have significance far beyond America’s relationship with the country dominated by Fidel Castro for five decades and led by his brother Raul today.

It may have announced a realignment of relationships right across the Americas.

The deal resolved an impasse older than Mr Obama and is the best chance to end the mistrust and hostility between America and Cuba that has intensified nearly every decade since Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill in 1898 and the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile crisis during the Kennedy presidency.

The White House decision to make it easier for US technology firms to upgrade Cuba’s internet systems will go a long way towards strengthening Cuba’s civil society and, hopefully, political evolution.

It will also mean that Cuba will be judged by new criteria and its shortcomings, especially its mistreatment of dissidents or minorities, can no longer be regarded as a consequence of isolation but rather an unattractive policy entirely within its own control.

There are lessons in this renewal. One is that nothing is impossible if negotiators are sincere and committed to finding a resolution.

Another may be that ending hostilities is far easier once the generation involved in the original conflict have left the stage.

Might it be time to apply that lesson in the North where the past and ageing leaderships still cast an impenetrable and immoveable shadow?