After 50 years of fractious hostility, America has thrown a dramatic lifeline to the island’s bankrupt economyTo the astonishment of even the most seasoned and wired-in of Cuba hands, the half century-long cold (and hot) war between the US and Cuba is over. In what will rank alongside Nixon’s opening to China and Reagan’s embrace of Gorbachev, Obama has achieved the diplomatic coup and historic legacy that so insistently eluded his 10 White House predecessors.