Tunisia

Larry Cohler-Esses, writing for Forward, discovers a dynamic and complex society during his recent trip to Iran. Omar Abdallah speaks with Syrian Alawites who no longer believe that the Assad regime can guarantee their safety. Larbi Sadiki takes a look at Tunisia’s recent anti-terrorism law and its effects on the nascent democratic system there.  

Victor Argo revisits the persona of longtime Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Nadia Marzouki and Hamza Meddeb question the assumptions behind the claim that Tunisia is a democratic success story. Malise Ruthven takes an inside look at the self-declared Islamic State as she reviews Abdel Bari Atwan’s latest book on the organizational efficiency and digital prowess of the terror group.

The Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, is coming to Washington today for meetings with President Obama. It is a big moment. Tunisian leaders have visited multiple times since Zine El Abedine Ben Ali’s fall in January 2011, but Essebsi’s visit is more consequential if only because he is not saddled with “interim” in his title. As I have written before, there is a lot to like about what has happened in Tunisia—peaceful transfers of power, compromise, a sense of shared responsibility for the future of the country, and minimal violence. It is for all these reasons that one hears the constant refrain, “Tunisia is the Arab Spring success story.” Even by the low standards of the present (and future) Middle East, the Tunisians have accomplished much in a short period of time. Still, I am having a hard time bringing myself around to the perception that Tunisia is firmly on a democratic trajectory. This is not just because of the country’s serious economic challenges, center-periphery problems, the apparent appeal of extremism to a relatively large number of young educated Tunisian men, or my own terminal cynicism. It’s more straightforward than any of those explanations: I simply do not believe that Beji Caid Essebsi has any particular interest in building an inclusive, pluralist political system. He is not even shy about his intentions. Last December 26, five days after he was elected president, Essebsi published an op-ed in the Washington Post, whose editorial writers have been positively bullish on Tunisia, titled “My Three Goals as Tunisia’s President.” Essebsi hit all the right themes emphasizing Tunisia’s “openness, tolerance, and moderation” and vowing to “strengthen [his country’s] young democracy at a time when hopes for democracy elsewhere in the region are failing to take root.” Yet intertwined with these platitudes clearly targeted for a particular kind of Washington audience—one that doesn’t know any better—was coded language and signals that suggest President Essebsi’s commitment to consensus may not go much further than the 848 words of his piece. The first item that tipped me off that Essebsi, who served both Habib Bourguiba, modern Tunisia’s founder, and the disgraced Ben Ali, was not exactly who people want to believe he is was the second sentence of his op-ed: “It was trade and exchange with Europe—in particular, with France and Italy, Tunisia’s closest Mediterranean neighbors—that opened the country to the Enlightenment.” There is nothing wrong with the Enlightenment, of course. It was an age of reason and tolerance and bequeathed to the modern world principles that those of us lucky enough to live in liberal democracies hold dear. In the context of Tunisia’s recent history and the political contest over who controls post-Ben Ali Tunisia, however, it was a clear shot at Essebsi’s frenemy, Rachid Ghannouchi, and his Islamist Ennahda Movement, which by dint of its Islamism harbors a worldview that is ostensibly hostile to Enlightenment ideals. Next Essebsi referenced Sadiki College, which is a bilingual high school established in 1875 that still exists and has been a training ground for Tunisia’s elite. None other than Habib Bourguiba was a product of Sadiki. The high school along with al Jamiyya al Khalduniyya, which was founded by Sadiki alumni in 1896, served to undermine the prominence of Zaytuna Mosque and University, which also still exist and which people like Ghannouchi—a graduate—hold in highest regard. Essebsi then informs his readers that the Sadiki graduates who founded Tunisia “…brought to their task a commitment to anchor the young republic in modernity. They instituted universal education, gender equality and separation of religion and state…” Could it be any more obvious what Essebsi is doing here? The Tunisian president is reaffirming how he and his party, Nidaa Tunis, stand for many of the same things that Washington Post readers believe as opposed to the Islamists with their retrograde views of the world. A couple of paragraphs down, Essebsi reemphasizes for his readers that his party triumphed in the parliamentary and presidential elections “Thanks to Bourguiba’s modernist legacy, which helped us mobilize the large, educated middle class, especially women to vote for our candidates…” Message: Islamists are ignorant misogynists. No doubt some are, but I am willing to wager that they do not have a monopoly on these loathsome qualities. After some boilerplate about the economy and battling extremism, Essebsi thanks Ghannouchi for being magnanimous in defeat and affirms his willingness to work with “all Tunisians to overcome our difficulties and establish our nation as a solid democracy.” It was a nice touch, but I am not sure how nice given everything that preceded it. It was as if someone advised Essebsi, “Sir, you have to be a little gracious. It’s the Washington Post.” Lest anyone believe that the last five months of working with Ennahda ministers and deputies may have encouraged Essebsi to view the group differently, the Tunisian president told the New York Times yesterday that the Islamists are being “Tunisified,” suggesting somehow Ghannouchi and the Islamists he represents are somehow products of someplace else and thus not a natural part of the country’s identity. For regular readers of this blog, Essebsi’s outlook seems like a milder version of Turkey’s Kemalism, made more acceptable by the warm revolutionary afterglow of Ben Ali’s fall. A critic might argue that it’s less important what Essebsi says than what he does, and what he has done so far is seek accommodation with Ennahda and oversee the formation of an inclusive government. This is all true, but it is only part of the story. The Nidaa Tunis leadership at first offered an exceedingly narrow government that left Ennahda out of the government, but Essebsi’s people simply did not have enough parliamentary mandates to make it happen. The current government is thus the result of electoral math, not good intention. It may very well be that the inability of the two big players in Tunisian politics to impose their will on each other will force them, without any other option, to compromise and over time establish democratic norms. That would be an outcome worthy of celebration, but there is something to be said for the power of ideas and at least for now identity politics remains potent enough in Tunisia to deliver a servant of the old regime to power.

Iranian FM Mohammad Zarif answers questions at New York University on the recent nuclear framework, terrorism, and more. Rima Ayoubi talks about day to day difficulties she faces in Damascus. Mohammed Yahia and Declan Butler write about science’s uncertain future in the Middle East.

Rami Alhames shows the disturbing situation in the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp. Hussam al-Jaber offers a glimpse into Deir al-Zor, Syria, under the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s harsh rules on aid and relief. Sarah Mersch writes about Tunisia’s upcoming judicial reforms.

Khaled Fahmy criticizes the Egyptian government’s plan to invest money in building a new capital rather than fixing Cairo’s endemic problems. Simon Cordall investigates the social and intellectual appeal of jihadism in Tunisia. Michael Koplow examines what the recent Israeli election shows about Israeli voting patterns and the likely policies of the incoming government.

Yezid Sayegh, in an interview with Syria Deeply, argues that a deteriorating situation in Syria may incentivize some rebels to strike a deal with the Assad regime. Ismail Dbara looks at how Tunisia is responding to the growing crisis in Libya. Mazal Mualem sees the upcoming Israeli elections as more focused on removing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than security issues or the economy.

Significant Developments Egypt. Egypt’s top prosecutor announced Tuesday that he plans to appeal an Egyptian court’s dismissal of all remaining charges against former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak, his security chief, and six high level police commanders were acquitted last week of killing protestors in the 2011 uprisings after the court ruled the case “inadmissible” on a technicality. Corruption charges were also dismissed against the former Egyptian leader, his two sons Alaa and Gamal, and his exiled friend Hussein Salem. Hundreds of protestors took to Tahrir Square after the verdict’s announcement, prompting the closure of the square over the weekend and again on Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International strongly criticized Egypt yesterday over its decision to sentence 188 former president Morsi supporters to death for killing 13 policemen in August 2013. Human Right’s Watch’s Sarah Lea Whitson stated that “mass death sentences are fast losing Egypt’s judiciary whatever reputation for independence it once had.” Israel. The Knesset voted yesterday to dissolve itself, setting new elections for March 17, 2015. The move followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Tuesday. Netanyahu accused Lapid and Livni of undermining him and forcing the coalition to break up. The current coalition government lasted a mere 20 months. Should Netanyahu win the next election, as is currently expected, he would become the first Israeli prime minister to serve four terms. U.S. Foreign Policy Bahrain. The State Department announced that Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Tom Malinowski, will visit Bahrain after being expelled last July for violating “conventional diplomatic norms,” by meeting with Al Wefaq, Bahrain’s main opposition party. The United States had responded to the Bahraini decision by partially suspending the sale of weapons to Bahrain’s defense ministry until Malinowski is authorized to return, and by indefinitely terminating assistance to Bahrain’s interior ministry. Malinowski will travel to Bahrain with Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, Anne Patterson. Anti-ISIS Conference. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the first ministerial conference of the international coalition fighting ISIS at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. The meeting, which was attended by over sixty ministers, focused on evaluating the coalition’s strategy against ISIS. Kerry told the conference that the United States would “engage in this campaign for as long as it takes to prevail.” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg yesterday on the sidelines of the conference that the Baghdad government will request NATO’s assistance in defense capacity building support. Secretary General Stoltenberg used the meeting to stress NATO’s “continued support to Iraq in its efforts to restore stability and security, and its commitment to help Iraq build more effective security forces.” While We Were Looking Elsewhere Qatar. Matthew and Grace Huang, the American couple that was detained and tried in Qatar for their alleged involvement in the death of their daughter, left the country for the United States yesterday. The couple was prevented from leaving for several days despite an appellate court ruling on Sunday that they were not responsible for their daughter’s death in January 2013. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry called on the Qatari government “to immediately implement the court’s decision and permit their return to the United States without further delay.” The Huangs were escorted to the airport by U.S. ambassador to Qatar Dana Shell Smith. ISIS. Iranian and Pentagon officials confirmed on Tuesday that Iran fighter jets bombed Sunni extremist targets in Iraq last week in a buffer zone twenty five miles from the Iranian border. According to Rear Admiral John F. Kirby, spokesperson for the Pentagon, the United States is not coordinating military activity with Iran, and it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government to “de-conflict [the Iraqi] airspace.” The United States has expressed concern that Iran’s increasingly active military involvement in Iraq could further stoke sectarian tensions in the region. According to Admiral Kirby, “our message to Iran is […] that we want nothing to be done that further inflames sectarian tensions in the country.” Syria. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) suspended its food voucher program on Monday, after running out of funds to pay for vouchers for the month of December. The donation cuts affect 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt after donors failed to honor their pledges. Yesterday, WFP launched a social media campaign to raise the $64million it requires to reinstate the voucher program. Iran. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano requested an extra $5.7 million from member states to finance its monitoring of the extended interim nuclear deal with Iran. The nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries were extended until the end of June after the parties failed to reach a decision by the November 24 deadline. Under the extended interim agreement, Iran will convert higher-grade enriched uranium into reactor fuel, which will make it more difficult to develop the uranium into an atomic weapon. Tunisia. Tunisia’s new parliament appointed Mohammed Nacer, vice president of the secular Nida Tounes party, as its speaker today. The new parliament opened its first session on Tuesday and will be tasked with naming the new prime minister after the final presidential vote later this month. Lebanon. Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil signaled yesterday that Lebanon is considering participating in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. One day earlier, American officials reported that Lebanese authorities had allegedly detained the daughter of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over a week ago at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon. The child’s mother was also detained, but it is unclear whether she is legally the ISIS leader’s wife. Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Iraqi interior ministry rejected allegations that the woman detained was Abu Bakr’s wife; instead, they identified the detainee as Saja Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, the sister of Omar Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, who is being held as a terror suspect in Iraq. Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility for yesterday’s terrorist attack targeting the Iranian embassy in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Iranian Ambassador Hossein Niknam escaped the explosion unharmed, but the blast killed a security guard and five civilians, and injured eleven more civilians. AQAP previously promised to destabilize the Houthis after they took control of Sana’a in September. Ambassador Niknam is seen as a close ally of the Houthi rebels.

Hossam Bahgat sheds some light on the verdict acquitting former President Hosni Mubarak of charges against him. Sam Kimball and Nicholas Linn contend that despite Tunisia’s recent elections, the country could be headed for another uprising. Karim Abou Merhi explores the raging "war of flags" in Iraq.

Tunis—Ever since Tunisia’s October 26 elections, there has been a raft of paeans to the “birthplace of the Arab Spring.” Tunisia does look pretty good, especially as it sits in between the chaos, resurgent authoritarianism, stasis, and faux reform of the neighborhood. The free and fair elections, which occurred ten months after the adoption of a new compromise constitution and a little more than a year after violence almost wrecked the whole post-Zine El Abidine Ben Ali political process, is worthy of praise. There have been two peaceful elections since Tunisians sent Ben Ali packing, which is an important benchmark for the country’s political trajectory. There is no doubt that Tunisians should be feeling pretty good about themselves, but I wonder if the editorial writers and commentators haven’t gotten a bit carried away. According to my friend and colleague, Amy Hawthorne, who observed last month’s elections, Tunisia’s transition to democracy is “very fragile.” I agree; Tunisia may be the best of the lot, but there are lots of ways it can go wrong. Before proceeding, let me offer a caveat. I am not a Tunisia expert. I have been following the country casually since the uprising here began in December 2010. It is a fascinating place, which is why I took the opportunity to visit. There are many more people studying Tunisia who have vastly more experience and are well worth reading. All that said, in my short time here I’ve picked up on what seem to be three major challenges for Tunisians as they move forward: 1. Bourguibism—For a certain generation of Tunisians, Habib Bourguiba, the founder of independent Tunisia, continues to hold a singular appeal. There are parallels between Bourguibism and Kemalism, though the former does not seem to be as well developed in terms of a worldview as the latter. Bourguiba advocated a state-managed economy, provided a strong cradle to grave social guarantees, fostered a hostility to religion even though the constitution declared Islam the religion of the state, emphasized Tunisian exceptionalism—which gave the country some leeway in differentiating itself from the Arab world so Tunisians would not feel bad about emulating Europe—and oversaw progressive personal status laws that gave women the right to vote and initiate divorce. And while most people claim they do not to want to return to Bourguiba’s authoritarianism and have a hard time even contemplating a reversal of the January 14 Revolution, Bourguibism remains important in Tunisian politics. The Nidaa Tounes movement, which secured the most seats in October’s parliamentary election, has consciously linked itself to Bourguiba. The party’s leader and perhaps Tunisia’s next president, the 87-year old Beji Caid Essebsi, was a minister four times under Bourguiba. In his public statements, at rallies, and in even in his choice of eyewear Essebsi evokes Bourguiba. There are two problems with this Bourguiba nostalgia. First, the apparent appeal of Bourguibism raises the nasty issue of identity politics. There are elements within Nidaa Tounes that sound a lot like radical Kemalists in their commitment to laicisme and their way of life, which they think should be everyone’s way of life. No one seems to know how strong this current is within Nidaa Tounes or Tunisian society more broadly, but analysts should at least entertain the possibility that an Essebsi presidential victory—elections are on November 23—will encourage these Tunisian “Kemalists.” Essebsi himself may be far more conciliatory toward the Islamist camp than the different factions within Nidaa Tounes that seem to have coalesced around their hostility to said Islamist camp. Second, Bourguiba’s statism created vested interests that are going to be hard to break. More on this below, but this is a problem not just of a small number of influential families who play an outsize role in the Tunisian economy, but also Tunisia’s middle class, which, from what I am told, loves its entitlements. 2. The Economy—There was a time not long ago when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund showered praise on the Tunisian economy. That actually is not as bizarre as one might think, even if one takes into account Tunisia’s current economic troubles and the whole 1970s/1980s era shabbiness of almost everything in downtown Tunis. Tunisia under Bourguiba’s successor, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, posted some good macroeconomic numbers, including a (relative to the rest of the region) healthy five percent growth rate, low inflation, and a budget deficit of zero. It was all a great success until, suddenly, it wasn’t. Ben Ali’s fall stripped bare the façade of “Tunisia—the one Arab country that works,” revealing considerable rot. In a recent mea culpa, the World Bank published a rather lengthy report on the state of the Tunisian economy, called The Unfinished Revolution: Bringing Opportunity, Good Jobs and Greater Wealth to all Tunisians, that details the economic challenges confronting the country: state-owned banks with poor governance and shoddy financial controls; a protected and lethargic private sector; an underdeveloped services sector; disruptive non-union workers; and a bloated public sector. As an aside, the powerful labor union—the UGTT—has proven itself to be among the more responsible economic actors. The union’s leaders are not necessarily on board with a neoliberal reform program and certainly want to protect what their members have, but they do recognize that reform is necessary in order for more Tunisians to enjoy greater economic opportunity. It is the barons of Tunisian business, not the UGTT, that are more likely to resist economic change. The same elite that controlled the economy under Ben Ali still controls the economy. The business class has grown fat and wealthy not because they are good capitalists, but because they were connected to the man in power. Ben Ali may be gone, but doing business remains very much the way it was done while he was firmly in control. It seems unlikely that the titans of Tunisian commerce will support the legal, political, and commercial reforms necessary to support the development of an actual market economy. Lest anyone think that the problem is just with a few families that have a grip on the economy, the Tunisian state has nurtured a middle class that has grown used to good wages (relative to meager productivity) in state agencies, generous health care, and subsidies on food and fuel. Bouguiba’s state-managed economy was a means of political control—Tunisians were expected to accept limited personal and political rights in exchange for a well-developed social safety net. Yet six decades later, the vested interests in the system have hobbled the economy and hemmed in Tunisia’s new politicians who would pare back these benefits at their political peril. The leading political parties don’t have an answer to this problem, and all technocrats meekly suggest is “national dialogue” about the economic challenges ahead. This seems like a recipe for economic policy drift, which is troubling because 2015 and 2016 are likely to be pretty bad years. Can the fragile political transition survive the tough economic times ahead? One can only hope. 3. Who to Trust?—Perhaps one of the things that sets Tunisia apart from its neighbors is a strong civic culture. It helped pull Tunisia back from the brink last summer, and the idea that Tunisians have a shared responsibility to each other underpins the national dialogue that followed this difficult period. Besides the fact the leading political party, Nidaa Tounes, does not have the requisite parliamentary mandates to govern alone, the Tunisians whom I have met emphasize that this strong civic culture is also what may drive a coalition government composed of Nidaa Tounes and al-Nahda. It is true that Essebsi and al-Nahda leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, have signaled a willingness to work together, but there is a certain wariness that pervades the discussion. As one Western interlocutor who has been observing Tunisian politics up close remarked to me, “No one seems to be acting normally.” Even though people say Tunisia is not polarized, I am not so sure. People freely admit that there is a disconnect between the two leaders and their respective bases, which leads one to wonder what happens if (a) Essebsi wins the presidential election outright (i.e., without a runoff), (b) he croaks, or (c) Ghannouchi, who is 73, but looks a decade older, dies. One can imagine that under any of these circumstances, the current emphasis on compromise could come to an end. Take the above with a grain of salt. Although it is based on a fair amount of reading, it is the product of a mere six days on the ground. It is, as the title of the post indicates, my first impressions. The intention is not to throw cold water on a pretty good story, but it is also important to recognize that Tunisia is far more complicated—and interesting—than the “Yay democracy!” editorials and commentaries of late.

St. Lawrence University offers an interactive look at the Arab uprisings through the lens of graffiti art. Michael Marcusa examines the revolutionary spirit of the youth of Sidi Bouzid three-and-a-half years after the Tunisian uprising. Rami Khouri explores ways of assessing fragmenting Arab states.