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.