Is the Cuba initiative not what it seems?

This is a fairly partisan article but raises an interesting question. From Obama's Shift on Cuba Comically Overblown by Mark Salter.

For all the media attention paid to President Obama’s decision to “normalize” relations with Cuba, it’s not entirely clear what the president can do on his own to justify all the portentous headlines. On its face, it would seem very little.

He cannot lift the trade embargo without congressional cooperation, which he won’t get. He cannot send a U.S. ambassador to Havana without Senate confirmation, which probably won’t happen. He cannot even expand the size of our interest section in Cuba into a full-fledged embassy without congressional appropriations, also doubtful.

He can relax travel restrictions to Cuba, but 600,000 Americans already travel every year to the island nation, mostly Cuban-Americans visiting family. It’s not clear that the number will increase that significantly in the wake of Obama’s decision.

I have not been keeping track of the details of the Cuba initiative. As a general rule, I am convinced that the more the people of totalitarian countries engage with the American system of government and trade, the more free and prosperous the world becomes. There are occasional circumstantial exceptions and the process takes longer in some places than others, but I think our most effective means of selling the American dream is to get more people engaged with the American dream. I am aware of the particular past of Cuba and why there are domestic constituencies who are strongly opposed to normalizing relations. But I have long thought that it was past time to bite the bullet and open relations. It is not dissimilar to the reunification of Germany and eventually Korea. It won't be easy but it is almost certainly necessary.

I had hoped as long ago as the Clinton administration that this might occur and likewise hoped that at the beginning of the Bush II administration that there might be a Nixon-to-China initiative. 9/11 put paid to that.

All of which is to say that I welcomed the news of an initiative to reestablish more formal relations. But I didn't look at the details in all the gushing news reports. Too many other things of higher priority to read. Salter raises the prospect that there may not be as much there there as I had anticipated. He's clearly partisan but I worry that he might be right that this turns out to be more smoke and mirrors rather than real progress.