Despite the politics of the last decades, baseball clearly played a very crucial role in shaping up and strengthening the common bonds between the US and Cuba separated by only 90 miles. The recently announced restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries marks the start of a new era for the two peoples. 

Call it market forces trumping politics, or call it ice-cream diplomacy. In a country whose many divisions include those who believe America has ruined Iraq versus those who believe Iran has, the new fast food restaurant brought in companies from both.

Initiated by the U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Penavic Marshall and blessed by her boss, (then) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership was created to “elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts,” as their mission statement says.

For more than a dozen years, Highland Park residents Carol and Rick Wolfe have been practicing the kind of people-to-people diplomacy that former President Dwight Eisenhower had in mind when he launched the Sister City movement in the 1950s. [...] The foundation has won the 2015 Best Overall Program award in its size category from Sister Cities International. 

This PPP includes a diaspora numbering three million in the U.S. alone and 25 million worldwide. A U.S. Agency for International Development press release explained that later this year, the Calvert Foundation (an implementing partner) will tender specially bonded notes to U.S. retailers, Indian Americans, and others, in order to support socioeconomic growth in India and the U.S.

U.S. policymakers should take a more strategic approach to Iranian sanctions relief and encourage the international business community to pursue commerce in the nation. It is not the United States’ job to rehabilitate the Iranian economy, of course, but clarifying the legal pathways toward Western investment in Iran is an important and necessary task.

The Obama administration quietly brought in a group of Iranian musicians to learn about American folk music. It was a small diplomatic gesture, but one the White House hoped would help ease tensions between the U.S. and Iran, two longtime foes.