Obama finally brings Cuba policy out of the Cold War darkness

Do check out the political cartoon.

If you are 53 or younger, you have never lived in a time when Cuba and the United States had diplomatic relations. With China, the communist giant, we’ve established normal relations. With communist Vietnam, our onetime enemy in war, we’ve established normal relations. But not Cuba.

That was until Wednesday, when President Obama finally took the step so many presidents and politicians knew should be taken, yet avoided because they feared a small number of very vocal, very passionate Cuban emigre voters in Miami would cause them big political trouble. Obama is not worried about that anymore, not only because he is never running for president again, but because his 50% share of the Cuban American vote in 2012 showed that minds were changing on the issue, even in that community.

Opening up to Cuba and reopening an American embassy in Havana has been a goal for the president since he first took office, but, for the last five years, he has had to wait for the release of U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned on suspicion of smuggling banned communications equipment into Cuba. Gross flew home Wednesday, and the creaky hinges of history began to move.

Back in 1961, trying to isolate revolutionary Cuba to bring down Fidel Castro's regime may have seemed like a smart plan, but, a half-century later, the aged Castro brothers retain power. In international forums, the U.S. is now the isolated party. Nearly all the countries in the world have had direct dealings with Cuba for a long time. Americans have been the stubborn outliers.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-obama-cuba-policy-20141217-story.html