Obama leaves Cuba, but Obama effect remains

Havana : President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba was heavy on symbolism and light on immediate results, but the after-shocks have the ability to shift Cuba's future, analysts said Tuesday.

"The most important effect of the whole visit in my view is the 'I can hardly believe my eyes' factor that it is happening," said Paul Webster Hare, who teaches international relations at Boston University.

The three-day visit to Havana was the first by a US president in 88 years and, more importantly, the first since a communist regime took power in the wake of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, turning Cuba into a Soviet ally and bitter enemy of the United States.

Analysts said that by coming in peace and calling for full restoration of neighborly relations,Obama undermined the decades-old logic that helped keep the Cuban government in power as a self-declared bastion against US imperialism.

And if the once unimaginable visit could be successful, "why not many other things?" Hare asked.

"The visit fuels the expectation of all Cubans that urgent change is needed in economic opportunities and the suffocating government controls. Old revolutionary rhetoric and blaming the US embargo for everything is no longer enough."

The US embargo against Cuba remains in place and it has long provided Cubans and their government a powerful motive to unite against the exterior threat. 

But Obama addressed that too, with a powerful call on the more hawkish US Congress led by his Republican foes to scrap the sanctions.