Barack And Raul's Excellent Adventure

What a difference 90 days with "smart power" makes. Raul Castro is apparently now open to high-level diplomacy with the US where "everything is on the table".

"We've told the North American government, in private and in public, that we are prepared, wherever they want, to discuss everything -- human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners -- everything, everything, everything that they want to discuss," Cuban President Raúl Castro said Thursday at a summit of leftist Latin American leaders in Venezuela.

The response came days after President Obama lifted all restrictions on the ability of American citizens to visit relatives in Cuba as well as to send them remittances. Travel restrictions for Americans of non-Cuban descent will remain in place.

This week's move represents a significant shift in a U.S. policy that had remained largely unchanged for nearly half a century. The U.S. government instituted the embargo three years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.

Cuba Libre indeed. Here's hoping to bring the Castros...and the GOP...around to the power of diplomacy with Secretary Clinton.

New tag: Cuba.