Arguably, the essence of political leadership is knowing just how far you can push.
Obama has obviously concluded that when it comes to Cuba, it's not far. The lightening of restrictions just announced may, as the New York Times puts it, represent "the most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades," but it is only a marginal change, and it underpins a policy that is predicated on the politics of Florida changing before relations between the US and Cuba resume heading in the right direction. Obama's decision not even to associate himself with this, allowing senior aides to make the announcement, also reveals how politically poisonous this issue can be - especially when the mid-terms start approaching next year.
It may be depressing to see Obama not push for more, but it may also be wise. Ford, Carter, George Bush Sr., and Clinton all suffered in the polls and in the donation boxes from trying to moderate the US line on Cuba. Only Reagan and Bush Jr. have managed to avoid that fate, by taking a hard-line position in both cases. Opening up dialogue through encouraging the exchange of peoples and hoping that a new generation of Cuban-Americans lose the reflexive anti-Castroism of the previous generations is passive but realistic. It suggests that perhaps we should view the US-Cuban dispute less as a case of frosty diplomatic relations, and more as a peace process in a long-standing civil war...? But even here, it might fail. Cuban politics have a nasty habit of running free from even the most conservative plans - witness Clinton's run-in with the Brothers to the Rescue.
Think Of the Children
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