A long face-off

A half century of cold war between US and Cuba ends

On January 1, 1959, when Fidel Castro ousted Fulgencio Batista after a lightning-quick insurgency in Cuba, the world was unimaginably different. The Cold War was still young; John F Kennedy was an undistinguished United States senator; African-Americans were still subject to harsh racial segregation in much of America, and the first African-American president had not yet been born. The year that Barack Obama was born, 1961, was also the year that Kennedy, as president, broke off relations with Mr Castro's Cuba. This week, a few months after his 53rd birthday, Mr Obama called off the 50-year standoff, restoring diplomatic relations. In this half century, Cuba has prospered in some ways and stagnated in others. For decades Mr Castro ran a repressive police state, but one which had public facilities and healthcare that were the envy of much richer nations. Today, the Cuban state is considerably softer - according to Amnesty International, after the Cubans heralded the new agreement with the US by releasing prisoners, less than 10 political prisoners remain incarcerated in the entire island.

But Havana is still a photographer's paradise, a time capsule of the 1950s. Batista's capital had been a playground of North America's rich; the grand hotels and huge cars of that time still line the city's streets. Little could have changed, anyway, given the shortage of money, and the limited interaction with the outside world. Alongside the US diplomatic freeze came a crushing economic embargo. Cuba struggled to make do with the main destination of its exports - in particular, sugar - suddenly cut off. First Soviet Russia and, more latterly, Venezuela, rallied around it with support. Venezuela, loyal to the anti-American precepts of its late president-for-life Hugo Chavez, sends 100,000 barrels of oil per day. But Venezuela's own subsidy-heavy economy is tottering - pushing Cuba towards compromising with the US.

For Mr Obama, this is a rare unequivocal foreign-policy victory. It is to be hoped he follows up quickly with an end to the embargo, the step that will be the most consequential for ordinary Cubans. Mr Obama is not the first president to recognise that the embargo had become a crutch, an excuse, for the Cuban regime - but he is the first president to defy the vocal Cuban-exile lobby in Florida and do what is basic good sense. What impact the entry of Republican Jeb Bush, whose political base is that tropical state, into the US presidential race had on Mr Obama's decision can be the stuff only of speculation. Indians will note that, lame duck at home or not, Mr Obama - who will be in New Delhi in a few weeks - continues to have the resolution to move forward and take potentially historic steps on foreign policy.

The impact on Cuba will take time to evaluate. The country is run now by the younger Castro brother, Raul Castro. When the announcement of the resumption of relations was made by Mr Castro and Mr Obama in separate speeches, many will have looked for the reaction of the one man who, above all, still personifies Cuba. The last revolutionary, Fidel Castro, who turned 88 last August, has not been seen in public since the beginning of 2014, when he visited an art gallery. He was fragile then, hunched over a walking stick and supported by a hefty security guard. But his mind remains sharp, judging by the long articles he continues to write - the last was in October, in response to a New York Times editorial. More than Venezuela's troubles, more than economic constraints, more than Barack Obama's blandishments, one thing will have played on Raul Castro's mind: he would need to reopen Cuba before the generalissimo died, and with his implicit approval. That was politically necessary. Perhaps the world will yet see Fidel Castro visit the White House.