Breaking wall of mistrust

The USA and Cuba are on the same page, and both countries are working towards restoring bilateral ties. US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have together led to this major shift in the US-Cuban relations. President Obama's statement on this development has also raised a predictable storm in the US, but for once the opponents of re-establishing ties with a nation that was long regarded as a thorn in the US backyard find themselves in a minority.
President Obama had taken important steps earlier, in 2009 when he removed five-year-old restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans. Now he has taken the next decisive step and secured his legacy in Latin America. There has been a generational change since the US broke off relations with Cuba following the nationalisation of US businesses by Fidel Castro, who overthrew the US-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista. The geo-political situation, too, has changed dramatically with Havana facing economic difficulties in a post-Soviet Union world and a US President who can afford to ignore parochial political pressures since he will no longer be facing an election.
The US policy on Cuba has changed. The normalisation of relations between the two countries and the restoration of full diplomatic ties will take time, more so since the Republicans will block the Obama Administration's initiatives. However, even they will be tempered by the fact that restoring ties is now increasingly popular even in Florida, where Cuban exiles have settled in large numbers. President Castro will also face challenges in explaining the dramatic shift in attitude to his people. However, the mutual benefit of the two countries having better relations is obvious. The Cold War created walls, a physical one in Germany and a wall of mistrust between Cuba and the US. The leaders of the two nations have breached that wall. Now they will have to work at improving ties to an extent that the wall vanishes, much like a physical wall in Berlin, once it was decided to tear it down.