Article Image

IPFS News Link • Cuba

A New Dawn for Cuba and Iran?

• Antiwar.Com - Dan Sanchez

BatistaShahDulles

Fulgencio Batista, Shah Reza Pahlavi, and Allen Dulles

"Es un nuevo dia" and "Nowruz Mubarak." The literal meaning of both phrases welcome the "new day" (nuevo dia, nowruz) in Spanish and Persian respectively (the latter is a holiday greeting for the Persian New Year). And President Barack Obama recently delivered these two messages to the people of Cuba and Iran.

Remarkably, the message to the Cubans was delivered in person, during his "historic" visit to Cuba on Monday. After meeting with Raul Castro, Obama said, "This is a new day?—?es un nuevo dia?—?between our two countries."

Obama's new year greeting to the Iranians was delivered via YouTube on Saturday. He related how the White House would welcome the new year and the new spring with succulent Persian dishes. And he quoted the Persian poet Hafez, who wrote, "Open the windows, for the kind breeze is celebrating the birthday of the flowers, and spring, on each and every branch, next to each leaf, has lit candles."

The back-to-back salutations are a rhetorical flourish added to the Obama administration's policy shift toward detente with both "rogue" states.

In December of 2014, the administration announced that it would normalize diplomatic, cultural, and economic relations with Cuba. Some progress has indeed been made in that direction. And in July of 2015, the administration agreed to a "nuclear deal" with Iran that led to the mitigation of sanctions on that country.

Both developments were met with fairly broad approval from the American public (although of course not from the war party) and with jubilation in the streets of Cuba and Iran.


PurePatriot