Cuba

The images were decidedly retro and jarring in their distant familiarity, as if a grainy old family film long left in the attic had been brought out for a screening. In defense of la patriala patria, army troops overpowered el palacio at dawn and placed el presidente on an airplane to be flown into exile, still wearing his pajamas. Sunday's coup in Honduras followed a script once so familiar it acquired cliche status, material even for a Woody Allen sendup.

In 1962, at a special meeting of the Organization of American States, the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este became famous for something more than just luxury condos, restaurants and hotels, and catering to the Argentine aristocracy during the holiday season. At that meeting, Cuba was suspended from the regional body, with the Cold War pretext that its espousal of "Marxism-Leninism" and an alliance with the Soviet Union were incompatible with membership in the hemispheric club and its organizations.

Despite the rhetoric and the photo-ops, the Trinidad Summit of the Americas postponed any real discussion of U.S. policy toward Cuba. In the U.S., the extremist embargo has been a sop to the right-wing and Florida electorate. But in countries like Mexico, Chile and Brazil, the Latin policy of never taking Havana to task for its atrocious human-rights record is a sop to the domestic left.

JORGE CASTAÑEDA AND ANDRÉS MARTINEZ, Fellows at the New America Foundation: For once Barack Obama can't be accused of pushing for ambitious change. The minor adjustments he has made to American policy towards Cuba simply take us back to the days of the Clinton administration, a time when the trade embargo and the travel ban had already proven to be counterproductive anachronisms. They still are.

Steve Clemons, a director at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank that favours ending the ban, today predicted that passage through Congress was more likely next year than this. Mel Martinez, a Republican senator from Florida, ...

For years, two tidbits of conventional wisdom have dominated debates among Cubanologists (a tropical subspecies of former Kremlinologists). First, that Deputy Prime Minister and economic czar Carlos Lage has been in charge of running the island economy since the early '90s, and, despite differences of opinion regarding his performance, was seen as one of the most likely successors to Fidel Castro's brother and successor, Raúl. Second, that Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque was not only in charge of the international relations Fidel Castro took

In the words of Steve Clemons, a Latin America expert at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, Cuba is “the lowest hanging ripe fruit on America’s tree of foreign policy options. Change is easy there -- and overdue. ...

But Steve Clemons, with the New America Foundation, says Lugar's report is a sharp indictment of nearly five decades of failure in trying to shift Havana's behavior through sanctions and embargoes. "I think the ... thing about the Lugar report is he ...

The Cuban revolution turned 50 years old last week, and its founder and undertaker was still around to celebrate the anniversary, though not in the best of health or spirits. This makes it a good opportunity to summarize what the revolution has brought to Cuba and what is has meant for Latin America.