Amid all the media coverage surrounding the flag-raising at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, there was Secretary of State John Kerry’s candid, managed-expectations aside. He said it would not be realistic “to expect normalizing relations to have, in a short term, a transformational impact. After all, Cuba’s future is for Cubans to shape. Responsibility for the nature and quality of governance and accountability rests, as it should, not with any outside entity; but solely within the citizens of this country.”
In other words, the United States–without sounding preachy and hypocritical–would like to see a more democratic Cuba. (For that matter, the U.S. would also like to see some allies and trading partners move in that direction too.) But that–as in how it defines human rights–is Cuba’s sovereign call, for better or worse, without interference from neighbors.