WaPo gets it

The editorial board of that decidedly non-righty newspaper understands that the Most Equal Comrade just pissed away the opportunity to put the final squeeze on the Castro regime:

IN RECENT months, the outlook for the Castro regime in Cuba was growing steadily darker. The modest reforms it adopted in recent years to improve abysmal economic conditions had stalled, due to the regime’s refusal to allow Cubans greater freedoms. Worse, the accelerating economic collapse of Venezuela meant that the huge subsidies that have kept the Castros afloat for the past decade were in peril. A growing number of Cubans were demanding basic human rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly.

[En español: Obama le da al régimen de Castro en Cuba un rescate inmerecido]

On Wednesday, the Castros suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout — from the Obama administration. President Obama granted the regime everything on its wish list that was within his power to grant; a full lifting of the trade embargo requires congressional action. Full diplomatic relations will be established, Cuba’s place on the list of terrorism sponsors reviewed and restrictions lifted on U.S. investment and most travel to Cuba. That liberalization will provide Havana with a fresh source of desperately needed hard currency and eliminate U.S. leverage for political reforms.

The editors see that this will lead to pressure on post-America to further indulge authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the world, a pattern that was established by engagement with Vietnam in the last couple of decades:

The administration says its move will transform relations with Latin America, but that is naive. Countries that previously demanded an end to U.S. sanctions on Cuba will not now look to Havana for reforms; instead, they will press the Obama administration not to sanction Venezuela. Mr. Obama says normalizing relations will allow the United States to be more effective in promoting political change in Cuba. That is contrary to U.S. experience with Communist regimes such as Vietnam, where normalization has led to no improvements on human rights in two decades. Moreover, nothing in Mr. Obama’s record of lukewarm and inconstant support for democratic change across the globe can give Ms. Sánchez and her fellow freedom fighters confidence in this promise.

The Vietnam outcome is what the Castros are counting on: a flood of U.S. tourists and business investment that will allow the regime to maintain its totalitarian system indefinitely. Mr. Obama may claim that he has dismantled a 50-year-old failed policy; what he has really done is give a 50-year-old failed regime a new lease on life. 

Oh, one other thing it does: Allow smug cultural elitists who prattle on about Cuba's "rich culture" to engage in exchanges with Cuban musicians, painters and cooks who are hand-picked by the Castro regime to represent a supposed national vitality that is hopelessly out of the average Cuban's ability to ever experience.  They can congratulate themselves on "building bridges of understanding" and "moving beyond the Cold War mentality" while thousands of Cubans are incarcerated for merely suggesting that the island ought to have alternative political parties and newspapers.

One addendum: Pope Francis has some 'splainin' to do.