Obama faces tough task in lifting sanctions on Cuba
Soon after assuming office in 2009, US President Barack Obama had said the United States was seeking a new beginning with Cuba. Six years later, he was finally able to fulfill that promise: it is better late than never.
Obama's historic talks with Cuban President Raul Castro were held on Saturday on the sidelines of the seventh Summit of Americas in Panama City. Their handshake paves the way for a thaw in decades of icy enmity between the two countries. But its significance goes beyond bilateral relations, because the US-Cuba impasse, a legacy of the Cold War, has helped shaped geopolitics in South America.
Obama was right six years ago when he termed the US policy toward Cuba a failure. For more than half a century, the US' hostility toward Cuba has been notorious: From trade embargo to diplomatic isolation, it has treated Cuba like a real enemy as though its southern neighbor posed a threat even decades after the Cold War ended.