Venezuela's role in warming Cuba - US relations

A lot of people have been getting credit for the US-Cuba breakthrough today, from Raul Castro and Barack Obama to Pope Francis and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But there's someone else who deserves credit for taking Cuban-US diplomatic relations to the brink of normalization, though he probably doesn't want it: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.  In the late 1990s, President Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chávez launched his political career with Fidel Castro as a mentor. Mr. Chávez was a staunch friend of the Cuban revolution, joined Castro in a Latin American bloc opposed to "US imperialism," and showered his resource-poor Caribbean neighbor with oil. In exchange, Cuba dispatched doctors to tend to Venezuela's sick. More…