Tunisia: How the US got it wrong

[Turborama]

The events in Tunisia again show how US foreign policy in the Middle East fails to fully understand the region.
Mark LeVine Last Modified: Jan 16 2011 15:10 GMT


Recently in Doha, Secretary of State Clinton spoke of regimes whose "foundations are sinking
into the sand" and who will disappear unless "reform" occurs. Ironically, the same regimes
who have been historically backed by the US

One sign read "Game Over". But in fact, the game has barely started.

The Facebook generation has taken to the streets and the "Jasmin Revolt" has become a revolution, at least as of the time of writing. And the flight of former President Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia is inspiring people across the Arab world to take to the streets and warn their own sclerotic and autocratic leaders that they could soon face a similar fate.

As the French paper Le Monde described it, scenes that were "unimaginable only days ago" are now occurring with dizzying speed. Already, in Egypt, Egyptians celebrate and show solidarity over Tunisia's collapse, chanting "Kefaya" and "We are next, we are next, Ben Ali tell Mubarak he is next." Protests in Algeria and Jordan could easily expand thanks to the inspiration of the tens of thousands of Tunisians, young and old, working and middle class, who toppled one of the world's most entrenched dictators. Arab bloggers are hailing what has happened in Tunisia as "the African revolution commencing... the global anti-capitalist revolution."

The birth of a human nationalism?

Around the turn of the new millennium, as the Arab world engaged in an intense debate over the nature of the emerging globalised system, one critic in the newspaper al-Nahar declared that an "inhuman globalisation" has been imposed on the Arab world when its peoples have yet even to be allowed to develop a "human" nationalism. Such a dynamic well describes the history of Tunisia, and most other countries in the Arab/Muslim world as well.

And so, if the people of Tunisia are lucky, they are in the midst of midwifing the Arab world's first human nationalism, taking control of their politics, economy and identity away from foreign interests and local elites alike in a manner that has not been seen in more than half a century.

Full article: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/01/20111167156465567.html

[midnight]

1. I think we get these things wrong because of our pro-capitlism stance...

[TBF]

7. +1 nt

[socialist_n_TN]

17. Undoubtedly...........

:)

[treestar]

2. Why is it our problem?

WTF do we have to do with it? Why is it our responsibility?

[Turborama]

3. Read the whole article

The answers to your questions are in there.

[treestar]

5. "We can't take sides."

And if we did, we'd be interfering. Can't win.

It's up to them who their government is. We do not have the responsibility to fix a government. I thought the left was against that in the case of Afghanistan or Iraq, for example?

We deal with the government that is there.

[PassingFair]

8. And if they don't do what we tell them to, we try to take them out.

Because it's a sin to stand in the way of profits.

[aquart]

4. "human nationalism"?

Sigh. What, exactly, did the US get wrong? We work to further our interests with the governments that exist.

Although I will agree that international cartels work in their own greedy interests and not those of the nations involved and we have made a HUGE error in identifying our interests with these cartels or "multinationals" as they like to think of themselves now.

I certainly wouldn't mind a more nationalistic policy from the American government. But I favor jail and execution for job outsourcing so some might consider me extreme.

Governments are not businesses. They have different goals. The goal and purpose of a government is the protection and promotion of the well-being of its people. That's it.

[socialist_n_TN]

18. Maybe I'm not as extreme as you..........

:) I don't necessarily want them jailed or executed. Just take their physical plants and turn them into worker's co-ops with government support for a couple of years until they get on their feet.

Hell, they'll probably consider taking away "their" property as more cruel and unusual than execution. Hit them where it hurts.

[JCMach1]

6. Some of us have been planting seeds over here for some time!

It is time for them to take root...

[David__77]

9. If this happened in Egypt it would be a huge deal.

It would be a pivotal moment. The west has so much riding on the Egyptian government, I'm sure the "pro-democracy" mask would quickly come off if there was some "revolution" in that country, which would inevitably be led by Muslim Brotherhood.

[Turborama]

13. The west has so much riding on the Egyptian government?

Not really. They have a neighbor who has so much riding on the Egyptian government. But 'the west', not so much. Anyway, this thread isn't about that neighbor so I'm not going any further with that.


The fact you use ""pro-democracy" mask" as a phrase is rather odd, though.

[David__77]

14. Odd, really?

It is because the US commitment to concepts like separation of powers and plural elections only extends insofar as it furthers its own geostrategic interests. I see it as false and cynical.

[Turborama]

15. I read what you wrote wrong

Thanks for the clarification.

[Catherina]

10. And a damn good thing too. Excellent article. Rec'd

Tunisia's nascent revolution will only succeed if it can finally repair the damage caused by French rule and the post-independence regime that in so many ways continued to serve European and American - rather than Tunisian - interests.

"We can't take sides."

A more tone deaf response would have been hard to imagine. This was a moment when the Obama administration could have seized the reins of history and helped usher in a new era in the Arab/Muslim world. In so doing it could have done more to defeat the forces of extremism than a million soldiers in AfPak and even more drone strikes could ever hope to accomplish.

A picture taken today outside the US Embassy in Tunis

[Cleita]

11. Our foreign policy is about propping up any

crappy, totalitarian government that doesn't get in the way of our American companies doing business in those countries or our military occupying key pieces of geography that we deem necessary to control no matter how many human rights are abused. It's time to change that foreign policy of exploitation to one that really practices the democracy and freedom that we preach. I can really see world peace and prosperity for all if we just did that.

[malaise]

12. It has never been about democracy

Follow the money

[Turborama]

16. Tunisia: Chief of Staff received instructions from Washington, "to take control of the situation"

OP posted in LBN by Catherina: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4699172

[Catherina]

19. The Chutzpah of Hillary Clinton

The Chutzpah of Hillary Clinton

"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Tunisian foreign minister, Kamel Morjane. She urged the new government to address popular concerns about economic opportunities, civil liberties and democratic elections, the State Department said in http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/world/africa/17tunis.html">a statement." That is just impudent.

1) Why did she not make that call when Bin `Ali was in power. Only now she has concerns about the welfare of the Tunisian people?

2) Would she dare make this call to the foreign ministers of her puppet regimes in Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Kuwait?

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/01/chutzpah-of-hillary-clinton.html