The Cuban Thaw Is Obama's Finest Foreign Policy Achievement to Date
Obama's engagement with Cuba overshadows Venezuela tensions and pisses off chavistas.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121522/cuba-obamas-biggest-foreign-policy-success
For all his efforts abroad during his second term, President Barack Obama’s greatest foreign policy achievement has come in a region often overlooked, despite being “America’s backyard”: Latin America. The historic opening of relations with Cuba, which took 18 months of secret negotiations the Vatican facilitated, was symbolically displayed at the seventh Summit of the Americas over the weekend with the meeting of Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro. In the first such encounter in five decades, the two leaders talked for an hour on Saturday. Obama described their meeting as “candid and fruitful.”
Obama has urged Congress to dismantle the U.S. embargo on Cuba, for it—along with other attempts to exclude Cuba from hemispheric initiatives—has long isolated the U.S. in Latin America and around the globe. Conscious of this fact and hoping to re-engage with a region that has increasingly sought independence from U.S. influence, Obama declared in remarks on Friday that the days when the “United States could meddle with impunity” in Latin America are “past.”
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Obama’s remarks, coupled with concrete moves toward opening relations with Cuba, will add to the positive views Latin Americans currently have of the United States. Before the announcement of intentions to restore diplomatic ties in December of last year, 65 percent had a favorable opinion of the country. Even Castro had mildly positive things to say of Obama, absolving him of responsibility for the history of U.S. hostility to the Cuban Revolution. “There were 10 presidents before him; all have a debt to us, but not President Obama,” Castro said. “I have read his books—parts of them—and I admire his life.”
The meeting overshadowed the typical anti-American rhetoric at regional summits where vocal, left-leaning leaders criticize U.S. actions in the region. The United States recently declared Venezuela a national security “threat” and adopted sanctions against members of the Venezuelan government for human rights violations. Observers worried that denunciations of these acts would distract from the summit’s goals of fostering greater cooperation. Even leaders close to the United States, such as Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, had denounced the move. But Obama eased some of this tension on Thursday by stating that Venezuela and the United States aren't threats to one another. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro described his own meeting with Obama as “frank,” adding it was possible to seek “a path to relations with respect, which is fundamental.”