ormer President Jimmy Carter seems to have a meteorological effect on this island. Like the low-pressure cold fronts that periodically blow down from the north and sweep away Havana's suffocating humidity, Carter's mere presence here seems to bring down the temperatures of Cuba's chronically overheated politics.

From the outset of the Obama presidency and the emergence of the Obama Doctrine, the similarities between this Administration and that of Jimmy Carter have been striking. Like Obama, Carter trumpeted soft power and international institutions as the means to solve the most perplexing foreign policy problems.