When I covered Cuba as a correspondent in the 1990s, I experienced the deepest of mixed feelings. It struck me as wrong that the island nation was still being subjected to numerous hardships by a vengeful United States that used any number of means to weaken and isolate it. At the same time, it was clear that Cuba’s government, led by the aging revolutionary Fidel Castro, had itself found countless ways to make life needlessly difficult for its citizens. As one of the last places on Earth that