My last blog post was pretty bleak. In the face of all the bad stuff going on in the world right now, it’s easy to forget that there is also a lot of good.

Amongst all the sorrow of the last few days, Wednesday brought a ray of hope and a serious victory in the realm of international diplomacy.

President Obama has formally announced that the United States and Cuba will have a diplomatic relationship once more, after more than 50 years of complete embargo between the two states.

Canada and the Vatican had a hand in arranging secret talks between President Obama and President Raul Castro of Cuba, during which the two states have agreed to open embassies in each other’s states, and to an exchange of prisoners. Cuba has released Alan Gross, a 65-year-old American Contractor. They have also released an American intelligence agent. In return, the United States has released three Cuban intelligence agents being held there.

This is a historic event. The United States and Cuba have had no diplomatic relations since 1961, as the two subscribe to opposing political ideologies. Cuba is adamantly communist, and the United States at the time was adamantly anti-communist. It still is, if you believe Republican rhetoric about the evils of socialized medicine. In combination with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the context of the cold war, the United States placed a trade embargo on the island and had refused all but the bare minimum of relations until now. Guantanamo Bay has been the sole exception to that rule.

President Obama has an uphill battle to fight in his efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between the two states. The historic distrust of Cuba by the American population and a Republican controlled House and Senate means passing legislation will be difficult. Many people believe that Cuba’s human rights violations should be enough reason to leave them under embargo. But I have to ask: is isolating them going to do anything at all to fix that? I would argue that developing positive relationships with rogue states allows for far more effective leverage in encouraging them to change. So far the embargo has only proven that Cuba can do just fine without a relationship with the United States. It would be interesting to see how that would change, were a trade relationship to develop.

Overall, though, this is what I asked for in my last post. To put down your feuds, recognize that being different is not a crime, and agree to move on from past hurts. This is only a first step for the United States and Cuba, and so much could still go awry; but it could also be the beginning of a better relationship.

We can solve world conflicts through dialogue and compromise to reach mutually beneficial agreements. It might mean each party will have to give up some of their ideal victory; the world may not look like what we expect. But it has to be better than the violent solutions we have now.

Funny though – the United States and Cuba coming to an agreement with 6 days before Christmas... it certainly seems like everyone’s gotten into the holiday spirit of giving and forgiving. Maybe it’s even our very own international relations Christmas miracle.

Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone. I’m going to go grab an eggnog latte from Starbucks and hope it snows.