With the news of Gilad Shalit's release from five years of captivity at the hands of Hamas, we found ourselves talking about the remarkable changes over the past half decade -- and what he's missed. It's not quite Charlton Heston waking up in a room full of talking apes,  but there's a lot that Shalit might find surprising. Upon his release, he said during an interview that he looked forward to "not doing the same things all day long." There's certainly plenty to keep him busy.

1. The iPhone

Remember that morning in January 2007, when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone? For many people, life has been divided into pre- and post- iPhone since that moment. No word yet if Shalit was a Nokia man or a clamshell guy, but we're betting that he's never unlocked a smart phone with the swipe of his finger, never beheld Google Maps in the palm of his hand, and never tapped out a text message on a touch screen. Apple, get this man a 4S.

2. Twitter/Facebook

Back in the dark days of 2006, people still relied on phone calls and email to communicate. How anything was accomplished is lost to history, now that Facebook and Twitter have changed the manner -- and speed -- with which information is delivered. Facebook launched in 2004, but it was still a limited network when Shalit was abducted: Facebook did not open its doors to everyone over the age of 13 until Sept. 26, 2006. Twitter launched just one month after Shalit was detained, in July of 2006, and now boasts over 200 million users. Indeed, the platform was used extensively to spread word of Shalit's capture and any news of his release. The hashtag #GiladShalit spread around the globe, with the Jewish Week arguing it eclipsed the fame of the soldier himself.  

3. Barack Obama

When Shalit was imprisoned, George W. Bush was president. Two years later, the U.S. elected its first black president, Barack Obama. In 2006, Obama was a senator from Illinois, arguing against the war in Iraq and raising the debt ceiling. After two years in office, Iraq is peaceful and U.S. debt is under control. Just kidding! Shalit actually didn't miss much here.

4. The Beatles

In all fairness, Shalit most likely knew a few Beatles tunes. However, he wouldn't have seen them play in his native Israel: The group was barred from the country --  over fears that they would corrupt Israel's youth -- until 2008, when the government apologized for the national ban, instituted in 1965, and invited the surviving members to play a concert for Israel's 60th anniversary. In Sept., 2008, Paul McCartney finally took the stage in Tel Aviv. That said, it was only McCartney, so it doesn't really count.

5. Economic Collapse

In 2006, when Shalit was taken hostage, the global economy was humming along, buoyed by a strong real estate market and easy credit. By 2008, the boom was over and a recession was sweeping the globe, shifting international power, both politically and economically, perhaps irrevocably toward the developing world. The United States was hit hard by the slump, as was Europe, both of which continue to be plagued by protests and government infighting. China, on the other hand, saw its economy boom, while other emerging economies, including Brazil and India, avoided the worst of the dip and recovered relatively quickly. Shalit doesn't need to worry too much, though: While Israel did feel some of the effects of the recession in 2009, its economy has more than bounced back as its technology sector continues to grow.  

What other major milestones did Shalit miss over the last five years? Let us know in the comments.

In 2008, Yu Keping, the head of China's Central Compilation and Translation Bureau and a professor at Peking University, published an attention-grabbing collection of essays called Democracy is a Good Thing. Coming from a Chinese Communist Party official said to be close to President Hu Jintao, Yu's bold assertion that "democracy is the best political system for humankind" was striking. But so was the fine print: Yu argued in the book that while "it is the inevitable trend for all nations of the world to move towards democracy ... the timing and speed of the development of democracy and the choice of the form and system of democracy are conditional." Among other things, he has resisted the idea that a multi-party political system would be appropriate for China. All of which is to say that Yu is something of a sphinx: As a New York Times profile observed last year, "Even China experts have a hard time determining whether Mr. Yu is a brave voice for change or simply a well-placed shill."

Which makes Yu -- who is in Washington this week -- a particularly interesting person to ask about the current moment in Chinese politics, in which the Communist Party is managing the transition from Hu to his presumed presidential successor, Vice President Xi Jinping, while watching the sudden explosion of anti-government, pro-democratic sentiment in the Arab world with palpable unease. The Chinese government began cracking down on human rights activists, artists, and writers in March, and barred another prominent writer from leaving the country this week.

Read on

Negotiations between Iran and the world's leading powers in Geneva wrapped up yesterday, with a pledge by the parties to resume talks in Istanbul at the end of January. Here's what FP contributor Simon Henderson, who released a paper on the talks and traveled to Switzerland to see them up close, had to say:

By Simon Henderson
Senior FP Geneva correspondent*

Geneva: European High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, who chaired nuclear talks Monday) and Tuesday between the so-called E3+3 (Britain, France, German plus the U.S., Russia, China) and Iran, retains a common touch.

Not for her an executive jet, she flew commercial from London Sunday, eschewing the proffered British Airways champagne for a glass of water with ice and lemon. She spent the flight reading her briefing documents. It's a fair bet that the surprise weekend announcement by Iran of its first indigenously mined uranium ore, known as yellowcake, wasn't part of her reading material.

The news allowed Iran to claim it has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle. Until now, international concern has focused on Iran's efforts to develop centrifuge enrichment technology as well as the capacity to make plutonium -- both potential fuels for an atomic bomb. But it meant that Ashton started off on Monday slightly on a back foot. The Iranian delegate Saeed Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council pitched that Iran is entitled to master all aspects of peaceful nuclear technology. The E3+3, also known as the P5+1, are concerned that, like the proverbial duck, Iran's nuclear work looks and sounds like a weapons program.

Jalili also asked for condemnation of two attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran on November 29. One died, the other -- who was subject to a U.N. travel ban because of his nefarious activities -- was injured. Blame is being placed on the long arm of the Mossad, Israel's secret service. Ashton, who is often criticized for lack of experience, obliged.

Arguably, Ashton should have thought of a better response, something along the lines about condemning all terrorism, a wording which would have also included Iran's subversive activities. She certainly knew about the attacks: fellow passengers on her commercial flight to Geneva noticed that she closely studied the long article about them in that day's London Observer newspaper.

*Simon Henderson is actually the Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Is China through with North Korea? That's the Guardian's takeaway from the exchanges between American diplomats and their Chinese and South Korean counterparts in the first batches of State Department cables released by Wikileaks on Sunday and Monday. "China has signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and is privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime," Simon Tisdall writes, and goes on to note evidence of "China's shift:" Nods of approval from Chinese officials for a single Korea governed from Seoul, expressions of alarm from Beijing about Pyongyang's 2009 missile tests, and a Chinese official's complaint that Kim Jong-il's regime is behaving like a "spoiled child."

It's all in there -- but sifting through the Wikileaks cables, that reading strikes me as a bit breathless. It's true that there are a couple of significant nods toward the idea of reunification. One comes in a 2009 meeting between Richard E. Hoagland and Cheng Guoping, respectively the American and Chinese ambassadors to Kazakhstan, at a hotel restaurant in the capital city of Astana. (Hoagland, incidentally, is a great reporter -- his account of the meeting is some of the best reading in the Wikileaks files.) "When asked about the reunification of Korea," Hoagland writes, "Guoping said China hopes for peaceful reunification in the long-term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short-term."

The other is some intelligence relayed from South Korean then-Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-woo, who told U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens that Chinese officials "would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a ‘benign alliance' -- as long as Korea was not hostile towards China." The breaking point, Chun reportedly told Stephens, was North Korea's 2006 nuclear test, after which Chinese officials were increasingly willing to "face the new reality" that North Korea had outlived its usefulness as a buffer between Chinese and American forces. Chun (in Stephens's paraphrase) notes that the "tremendous trade and labor-export opportunities for Chinese companies" in a newly opened North Korea might would make reunification easier to swallow, and points out that in any case, "China's strategic economic interests now lie with the United States, Japan, and South Korea -- not North Korea."

Otherwise, Beijing's sharpest words -- such as Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei's remark that the Kim regime is acting like a "spoiled child" trying to get the attention of the "adult" United States -- came mostly in the wake of Pyongyang's April 2009 missile test, in the context of Beijing's efforts to engage Washington in bilateral talks with Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il's principal diplomatic goal at the time. Beijing's emissaries mostly just seem to be trying to keep the Americans at the table.

David E. Sanger's take in the New York Times better captures the essence of the cables, which is to say their ambiguity -- based on the selective evidence here, Beijing seems only somewhat less in the dark about what exactly is going on in Pyongyang than North Korea's enemies. Other corners of the Wikileaks trove are rich in plot and detail: the Obama administration's slow disenchantment with Turkey, byzantine Azeri-Iranian money laundering schemes, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh's entanglements with the U.S. military. The North Korean cables are mostly a lot of chatter around the edges of a giant question mark. As Sanger writes, they "are long on educated guesses and short on facts, illustrating why their subject is known as the Black Hole of Asia." The dominant mood of the Chinese diplomats who appear throughout them is exhaustion -- a sense, plenty familiar in Washington and Seoul, that no one really knows what to do next.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams takes to the pages of the Guardian today to claim some credit for his Northern Irish nationalist party in inducing the Basque separatist group ETA to declare a unilaterial ceasefire over the weekend. While Adams is optimistic, it's not clear how significant the ceasefire really is -- the Spanish government has dismissed it as the desperate action of a group that has become too weak and disorganized to plan attacks. But Adams' argument that the recent progress toward a Basque settlement has been "modelled on our experience" in the resolution of the Northern Irish conflict is interesting given that other round of peace talks going on this month.   

U.S. envoy George Mitchell has said that his experience as a mediator during the Northern Irish talks makes him optimistic about the prospects for success in the Middle East:

I chaired three separate sets of discussions in Northern Ireland, spanning a period overall of five years. The main negotiation lasted for 22 months. During that time, the effort was repeatedly branded a failure. I was asked at least dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times when I was leaving because the effort had failed.

And of course, if the objective is to achieve a peace agreement, until you do achieve one, you have failed to do so. In a sense, in Northern Ireland, we had about 700 days of failure and one day of success.

In his column last week, James Traub listed several reasons why the analogy between the two conflicts doesn't quite hold up, yet the resolution of the formerly intractable Northern Irish Troubles remains a tantalizing example of success for would-be peacemakers in the Middle East. The Irish themselves have often helped propogate the comparison.

But even if the IRA isn't Hamas and the Israelis aren't much like the British, are there lessons that can be learned from how the conflict resolved? Mitchell himself put it pretty well back in 2008:

Where men and women have few opportunities and little hope, they are more likely to turn to violence. The conflict in Northern Ireland was not exclusively or even primarily economic. It involved religion, national identity, territory, and more. But underlying it, and exacerbating it, as in most conflicts, were economic problems.[...]

Much progress has been made. In the 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement was struck, Northern Ireland's economy has shown signs of a turnaround. The region is the fastest growing destination for foreign direct investment in the United Kingdom. Unemployment is low, and there is a move toward economic diversification. There is also a genuine mood of optimism about the future. Many hope that Northern Ireland will be the next phase of the "Celtic Tiger," the apt characterization of the decades-long economic surge in the Republic of Ireland.

It's probably not a coincidence that the most meaningful progress toward peace in Northern Ireland came during a period of high economic growth for the Republic and Britain as well as rapid European integration that made national boundaries less relevant.

The not very shocking or encouraging lesson of the Northern Irish peace process may be that underlying economic and political conditions matter more than what's said at the negotiating table. In this light, conditions may well be in place for a peaceful resolution of the Basque insurgency, which is a shadow of its former self in any case. Moreover, nearby Catalonia has proven far more successful at acheiving political and cultural autonomy by working within the system, providing a useful lesson to Basque nationalists.

Despite some hopeful signs on the West Bank, similarly favorable conditions are still probably a long way off in the Middle East. Despite the hopeful rhetoric, Mitchell probably knows this.  

The Turkish- and Brazilian-brokered nuclear enrichment deal with Iran earlier this week was widely seen as a setback for the Obama administration's nonproliferation agenda, and indeed the White House didn't exactly shower the agreement with praise before continuing its push to slap new sanctions on Iran. 

But according to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the whole thing was done with Obama's encouragement. The National reports:

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, however, credited Mr Obama’s policy of engaging with Tehran for Ankara’s success in pursuing a diplomatic solution. “[Obama] paved the way for this process,” Mr Davutoglu said during a news conference in Istanbul. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had been “encouraged” to pursue dialogue with Tehran by Mr Obama during a recent, high-level nuclear conference in New York.

While I'm sure Erdogan and Obama discussed Iran, it seems unlikely that anything that explicit was said. At a briefing on Monday -- before Davutoglu's comments -- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the president had "not talked directly" with the leaders of Turkey or Brazil as the deal was being put together. 

Turkey and Brazil are reportedly infuriated by the new U.S.-backed agreement on sanctions and Davutoglu's suggestion that Obama was for the deal before he was against it isn't going to sit well in Washingtion.  

Hat tip: RFE/RL Transmission

Yesterday, the Greek government announced a spate of emergency austerity measures, designed to help the country close its yawning budget gap. Half are new taxes, and half are spending cuts, including:

• Hiking the VAT from 19 percent to 21 percent (worth 1.3 billion euros)
• One-off corporate tax (1 billion)
• Cutting "holiday bonuses" by 30 percent (740 million)
• 2 percent supplemental gas tax (450 million)
• Freeze on state pensions (450 million)
• Reducing bonuses and pay by 7  percent for public sector employees (360 million)
• 2 percent supplemental cigarette tax (300 million)
• Supplemental electricity tax (250 million)
• One-off tax on vacation homes and oversized properties (200 million)
• Cuts to pension subsidies (150 million)
• Supplemental tax on luxury goods, e.g. yachts and cars worth more than 35,000 euros (100 million)

Other measures include: an additional 1 percent tax on income over 100,000 euros, reducing government overtime hours by 30 percent, cutting public-sector benefits 10 percent, and taxing the commercial activities of churches. And it's still not quite enough -- Greece needs an additional bailout to help it pay off debt due this spring. 

Russian Deputy Prime Minsiter Igor Sechin apparently blew his top after Kommersant published an article suggesting that Russian financial support for Cuba was being linked to recognition of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia: The Miami Herald reports:

In an article Feb. 12 in the daily Kommersant, reporter Andrei Odinets said that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's tour of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Mexico was intended to restart – in the aftermath of the Caucasus war – Moscow's "diplomatic offensive in Latin America, which last year began to choke."

"It is possible that Moscow will encourage Russian investment in Cuba's mineral riches if Havana announces its recognition of [South Ossetia and Abkhazia]," Odinets wrote. "Russia already has worked such a scheme in Venezuela," trading oil-exploration money for diplomatic support, he said..

In an angry letter to Kommersant on Monday, Sechin derided Odinets as a self-appointed expert in foreign policy and an inept journalist. Some of Odinets' information was "biased and untrue," Sechin said. The reporter's allegation that Cuba's diplomatic support could be purchased was "detrimental to the principles of [Russo-Cuban] cooperation and long-term friendship, historically based on the shared values and trust acquired during the long and difficult years of working together."

In the friendship between Moscow and Havana "there is no place for cold financial calculation or ambition," Sechin wrote.

 Strangely, in the letter, Sechin doesn't seem to deny that there was quid-pro-quo in the other countries that have recognized the breakaway regions, just that such cynical maneuvering would be unthinkable given the long history of Cuban-Russian cooperation. Is he suggesting that there is room for cold financial calculation in the frienship between Moscow and Caracas or Moscow and Managua? I'm not even going to ask about Nauru.

Late last year, my colleague Blake Hounshell and I sat down with Anwar Ibrahim here in Washington, where he was attending a conference on inter-religious understanding. The Malaysian opposition leader (who is #32 one of our Top Global Thinkers of 2009) is today in a very different setting: the beginning of his trial for charges of sodomy that he says are politically motivated. Here are a few excerpts from that interview, including his thoughts on democracy, religion, and being an opposition figure.

FP: One criticism in the United States of the Muslim world is, people will say: the Muslim world is not addressing its own problems; The Muslim world is more likely to blame America for what is going on then to do soul searching about the state of discourse in Islam today. What is your response to that?

Anwar Ibrahim: I just answer, be equally responsible. You can't just erase a period of imperialism and colonialism. You have to deal, you can't erase, for example, the fault lines, the bad policies, the failed policies, the war in Iraq for example, and ambivalence you support dictators inside the top democracy. ...This night [in Malaysia], [there are] emails [circulating within] the national media, the government television network. They will  start a 5 to 7 minute campaign: Anwar is in the United States, he is a lackey of the Americans, he is pro-Jew. Period. And they go on with impunity, [as they have done] for the last 11 years. Because they want to deflect from the issue of repression, endemic corruption, destruction of the institutions of governance.

There is a difference. You [the United States] have Abu Ghraib and it is exposed -- and the media went to town. The atrocities in the Muslim world, in our prisons, [and I am] not talking about my personal experience, [are] all knitted up.

What we need is credible voice in the Muslim world, independent. Some liberal Muslims become so American in their views, so Western. I don't think you should do that. Americans need to appreciate the fact that I am a Muslim, there don't need to be apologies for that. But at the same time we must have the courage to address the inherent weaknesses within Muslim societies.

FP: When was it that you first decided this debate between religion was something you wanted to be a part of?

AI: In Malaysia, [this] is so critical. [It's] a multi racial country, a religious country. [There is a] Muslim majority of 55 percent, then Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of various domination. I grew up being involved in the Muslim youth work, even when I was a student, engaging in this.  The Vatican supported the East Asian Christian Conference at the time and we started having these discussions. My initial work in the youth work when I was leading the Malaysia youth counsel which is an umbrella of all the Hindu youth and the Buddhist youth and the Christian youth. I benefited immensely ... we started engaging them. ... Then of course there was tolerance when we hosted a conference; they were mindful of the Hindus were strictly vegetarian or if the Christian organized, they were aware we did not eat pork or drink.

When I was I government the Muslim Christian dialogue was promoted, in fact I supported the program. There was a Muslim Christian center in Georgetown and we went to New Manila University. The majority of the Malaysians non-Muslims are not Christians but Confucianists, so we brought in Professor Tu Wei-ming one of the Chinese scholars of Confucianism from Harvard to come and tell us about Confucianism and we tell him about Islam. There is so much in common between Confucianism and Islam.

FP: How do you balance your life as a thinker and a politician?

AI: People do suggest that, but I quite disagree. Of course you simplify the arguments but the same arguments, the central thesis remains constant but the way you articulate it may differ. People say, Anwar you are opportunistic, how can you talk about Islam and the Quran here and then you talk about Shakespeare there and then quote Jefferson or Edmond Burke. I say it depends on the audience. [If] I go to a remote village, of course I talk about the Quran. In Kuala Lumpur ,and you quote T.S Eliot. If I quote the Quran all the time, to a group of lawyers, I am a mullah from somewhere.

[Some] think because I do court [Islamic votes] these days they think I am a Islamist. [But] you ask the question -- is it true, Anwar, that you are sound and consistent in your views and you are not actually a closet Islamist? I say, Why do you say that? [The] six years [I spent in] prison is not enough? And they say no, but you engage with the Islamists, and I said yes.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle paid a surprise visit to Yemen today to meet with President Ali Abdullah Saleh and ask for his help in locating German hostages who have been held in the country since June. Do you think the Yemenis might have been trying to send a message by having Westerwelle give his press conference in front of this mural? Could they not fit in a picture of Saleh slaying a dragon or playing lead guitar for Kiss?

Fazal Haque Qureshi, the senior-most Kashmiri separatist leader and an executive member of the moderate separatist Hurriyat Conference, has been shot in the head today by guerrillas and is in "very critical" condition. The shooting comes just two days after India's home minister announced the possibility of taking the "risky step" of withdrawing a "significant" number of Indian troops from the region. On multiple occassions, violence has derailed diplomatic efforts. Just over a year ago, a coordinated series of shootings in Mumbai resulted in the murder of 166 civilians; a number of analysts argued that attack was an effort by extremists seeking to stop any improvement in relations between India and Pakistan.

Demilitarization of the contested region has been one of the most consistent demands of the separatists. But it's not something to bank on, said Teresita Schaffer, the director of the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an interview with FP:

The Indian government is going to be wary of troop withdrawals unless they see movement on the Pakistani side, and unless they also see a return to the previous low levels of infiltration...if you're wondering whether there's a serious commitment to accommodate Kashmiri desires in Kahmir on the part of the government of India, I would qualify that very heavily. I think they would very much like to reach a state of affairs where Kashmiris were willing to participate in elections, and became somewhat more content with being ruled by India. They are not prepared to make major changes in policy in the attempt."

The implications of today's shooting for the ongoing Indian-Kashmiri talks depend on the separatists' reaction, Shaffer concluded. Here's hoping that the negotiations proceed apace - it's a conflict with stakes as high as they come.

Photo: PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images

Via Mideast Wire, here's a translation of what the Sudan People's Liberation Movement ambassador to Washington, Akec Khoc, told the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat about Gration:

Q: “How do you see the current American-Sudanese relations?

A: “For more than ten years, i.e. during the term of the administration of President Clinton then the administration of George Bush, the relationship has been very tense. And there have been many differences and clashes. But of course and thanks to the efforts of General Gration and after president Barack Obama has declared his new Sudan policy, it has became clear that the relationship developed greatly. We are very optimistic. For many years now, the relationship has not improved that much and it is not the best relation. But things are on the right track."

Q: "But many American NGOs are criticizing Obama's policies towards Sudan?"

A: "In the United States as in other countries, there are some parties that want our relations with Washington to deteriorate and wish to give a negative image of Sudan around the world, not only in regard to the Darfur issue but also in other cases. They think that Sudan is an easy target. But we in Sudan will always welcome anyone who wants to work with us peacefully and away from any media commotion. And now under Obama who has decided to open up to everybody and deal with many countries among which is Sudan, I sincerely hope that his efforts will be successful."

Update: This post has been updated to reflect a correction. A wise commenter has pointed out that our Arabic transcript was incomplete. The ambassador, Akec Khoc (not John Akweg) is a member of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- not the Khartoum government. We regret the error and thank our commentor for pointing this out! 

ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images

The Obama administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular, seems to have developed a bit of a "mission accomplished" problem when it comes to diplomatic breakthroughs. Last week Clinton hailed Benjamin Netanyahu's "unprecedented" concessions on settlement construction, when it was fairly clear that Palestinians didn't see evidence of any concessions and touted a "historic agreement" to end the ongoing political standoff in Honduras, though it should have been obvious that neither side had any incentive to follow through on the terms of the deal. 

Today, it's fairly obvious that Clinton was overselling both developments with Mahmoud Abbas announcing that he will quit (true or not) and Manuel Zelaya declaring, "the accord is dead."

The administration has had a number of diplomatic "breakthroughs" that didn't pan out lately. Hamid Karzai's agreement to hold a runoff election in Afghanistan was followed by Abdullah Abdulla's decision to pull out. Dmitry Medvedev's seeming openness to Iran sanctions was contradicted by his own foreign minister. And the Iranian negotiators who agreed to a deal on nuclear enrichment, apparently didn't check with the bosses back in Tehran.

This isn't to say that these efforts were a waste of time or that the setbacks were the fault of the U.S., but out of desire for a tangible foreign policy victory, the administration seems to be developing a tendency to oversell diplomatic tactical victories before it's clear if the other parties will follow through on their commitments. 

I agree with Dan Drezner, that no one with reasonable expectations of what U.S. foreign policy can accomplish should be shocked by the fact that the Obama team hasn't achieved major breakthroughs on any of these challenges, but it would be nice if they didn't keep telling us we were witnessing history in the making. 

Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images 

I don't quite understand the point of this:

U.S. President Barack Obama asked Spain to pass Cuba a message on the need for democratic reform when he met Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, according to a U.S. official....

"When (Obama) learned that Foreign Minister Moratinos was about to go to Havana, he suggested that Moratinos urge the Castro regime to take steps to reform and improve human rights," the U.S. official said on Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity....

The U.S. request to deliver a message to Cuba was first reported by Spain's El Pais newspaper, which said Obama talked of a potential turning point in the relationship with Havana, but said it was important for Cuba take some steps.

"Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can't happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began," Obama told Zapatero, according to diplomatic sources quoted by El Pais.

 I have a feeling that after half a century, the Castro brothers probably realize that the U.S. doesn't much like the way they run their country and don't need the Spanish foreign minister to tell them. And if Obama has something new to say to the Cuban regime, why can't he say it himself, if not through his own envoy than through a letter.

It sends a pretty strange message that the administration is unwilling to have any direct contact with the Cuban regime, even just to admonish them, but seems to have no problem with other countries doing it.