Obama Libre

American President Barack Obama continues his policy of gestures with high symbolic content (thus, with some political significance) but rather limited, actual change.

His new policy toward Cuba is translated easily as “Obama lifts anti-Cuban restrictions.” This is not incorrect, but incomplete and, therefore, misleading. Obama leaves the existing embargo unchanged for 99 percent: U.S. citizens still are not allowed to travel to Cuba, and a true restoration of diplomatic relations will certainly not happen.

He does scale back the harshest anti-Cuban measures instituted during the Bush administration: the curtailment of the options for Cubans living in the U.S. to travel or ship money and goods to Cuba. This is a favor to Cuban extremists in Miami. Because of its radical nature, this measure had become unpopular with many exiled Cubans in the U.S. They are certainly not friends of Castro, but they did wish to be able to assist and visit their families.

By retaining the most tested measures and scaling back Bush exaggerations, Obama is now taking the former position of Bill Clinton. Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will not be opposed to that. And yet, Obama symbolically goes a step further. He does not let go of the old embargo policy, but does provide the political signal of a new course in Washington. Havana is not Pyongyang: The Obama administration noted, in its way, the carefully extended hand of Raúl Castro, despite Moscow’s stated desire to install missiles in Cuba once again – a late, bizarre continuation of the Cold War, not without danger.

Fundamentally, relations between the U.S. and a mild version of (post-) Castroism do not need to be hyper-hostile. Shortly after Castro’s 1959 coup in Havana, his favorite photographer, Korda, shot one of the most fascinating images of the young Fidel in . . . Washington. Castro looks with respect and awe at the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln. It is the intriguing difference in translation between “freedom” and “libertad”: so similar and yet so different, so near each other and yet so far away.

If Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can find a new modus vivendi between Washington and Havana, it well may constitute the beginning of the end of exactly 50 years of overly hostile neighborliness.