Tunisia

The G8 pledged new aid to Tunisia and Egypt to help their transition to democracy, but it will be a challenge to turn the aid into desperately needed jobs and an investment-friendly climate, says Mideast expert Jane Kinninmont.

Opposition supporters throw rocks during rioting with pro-Mubarak supporters near Tahrir Square in Cairo February 3, 2011. (Goran Tomasevic/Courtesy Reuters) Sub-Saharan African leaders, particularly those with less than stellar records of accountable governance, are certainly wary of the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt. However, while the likelihood exists that the bug may spread south, I wouldn’t count on a continent wide revolution. Some governments are all too willing to fire into crowds, and a weak national identity means people are not ready to die for their country. In other places, government is so weak, ineffective or irrelevant to most people that they prefer to rely on their social networks as the state withers away. Nigeria is an excellent example. The Nigerian security services have a long history of using indiscriminate violence to put down social unrest. At the same time, people have become so alienated from the federal government that they have largely abandoned any sense of Nigerian national identity. In the end, many are unprepared to risk their lives for an entity—Nigeria—that they view as largely insignificant and absent from daily life. h/t to Asch Harwood.

Tunisian army soldier stands in front of the headquarters of the Constitutional Democratic Rally party of ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali during a demonstration in Tunis on January 20, 2011 (Zohra Bensemra/Courtesy Reuters) Hi folks, Below is my article on Tunisia that is now up on Foreign Policy. Enjoy. Aren’t Middle Eastern militaries supposed to crack down and kick butt? Aren’t they supposed to be the "backbone" of regimes? The guarantors of last resort? The ultimate instrument of political control? Read any account of civil-military relations and the Middle East -- including my own -- and the answers to these questions are a resounding yes. So when the Tunisian armed forces, allegedly at the command of General Rashid Ammar, told Tunisian President Zine Abidine Ben Ali that the military would not shoot protesters demanding the strongman’s ouster and then pushed him from power, the commanders were clearly not playing to type. The role that the military has played in the Tunisian uprising thus far is intriguing and as Tunisia grapples with phase two of the post-Ben Ali era, what the military does (and doesn’t do) will be critical in the country’s political trajectory. Although the armed forces intervention defied expectations of Middle Eastern militaries, the fact that officers sided with the Tunisian people actually makes perfect sense. The Tunisian military -- made up of about 36,000 officers and conscripts across the army, navy, and air force -- is not the oversized military common throughout the Middle East that is short on war fighting capabilities but long on prestige and maintaining domestic stability. Defense spending in Tunisia under Ben Ali was a relatively low 1.4 percent of GDP, which reflects not only the fact that the country has no external threats, but also part of a Ben Ali strategy to ensure that the armed forces could not threaten his rule. This was clearly a mistake. Had Ben Ali followed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has always taken great care to make sure that the Egyptian armed forces were well-resourced, General Ammar and his fellow officers may have thought twice about tossing their sugar daddy overboard. Yet there is a more profound difference between the Tunisian military than its counterparts in Algeria, Egypt, and Turkey to name a few. Unlike Mustafa Kemal and his comrades, the Free Officers, and Armee Liberation National, Tunisia’s military did not found a new Tunisian regime after the country’s independence in 1956. This was largely a civilian affair under the leadership of Habib Bourgiba -- a lawyer. As a result, there is no organic link between the military and the political system. In Algeria, for example, the officers are prepared to plunge the country into a decade of bloody civil war in order to defend a political order that their predecessor founded and from which the military benefits above all. This is clearly not the case in Tunisia, which, if they did play the role that everyone suspects, made it easier for General Ammar and his colleagues to dump Ben Ali when protests and violence threatened to consume the country. As Tunisia gropes toward some semblance of stability and organizes elections anticipated within six months, the burning question for the Tunisian armed forces is: What next? What’s the strategy? It seems that after ousting and restoring order, which means above all getting in between demonstrators and the police, the commanders are hoping the civilians will be able to lead the country out of its current crisis, allowing the officers to return to where they like to be most -- the barracks. Still, having intervened on the side of Tunisian society against Ben Ali, the military may have, in an entirely unintended way, mid-wifed a more democratic and open political system. Given that General Ammar or whoever is calling the shots is an unknown figure, his political views are a mystery. He may be a democrat; he may not be -- but it does not really matter. The military intervened to stem the tide of demonstrations and violence. The officers thus have an implicit expectation that new civilian leaders will respond to demands from society for reform lest Tunisia experience another wave of popular upheaval. These expectations would be vastly different if the military had intervened on behalf of Ben Ali. In that case, there would likely be a fair amount of institutional re-engineering to make sure that popular discontent could never again morph into a massive uprising, ushering in a nastier, narrower dictatorship. There is a real risk for the military here, however. What if the civilians cannot manage Tunisia’s new political reality? Indeed, Tunisia’s interim leaders are being hammered, caught between continuing demands for thoroughgoing political change that uproots the remnant of Ben Ali’s rein, including the formerly ruling RCD, and their own inclinations and allegiances to the former dictator. If the interim government botches this very sensitive phase in Tunisia’s transition, the military may have to stay on. This does not mean that Tunisia’s officers would become directly involved in governing, but they may be forced into a tutelary role during the search for a workable political formula that will guide Tunisia going forward. Any long stay outside the barracks could have serious repercussions for the coherence and professionalism of the armed forces as the officers are exposed to the vicissitudes of politics. Thus far, the Tunisian military seems to be well aware of the pitfalls associated with their intervention. By their actions, they are signaling that they have no intention of ruling. Yet, funny things happen on the way to reform. Few remember, but the Free Officers -- despite not having well-developed plan after their 1952 coup -- did intend to establish what they called a "clean" parliamentary system. The hard realities of Egyptian politics, however, led them in an entirely different direction than their initial rhetoric indicated. Admittedly, this is a tough analogy -- 1952 is not 2011 -- and General Rashid Ammar is not Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser. The overall point is, however, a sound one. For all the exhilaration and joy resulting from Ben Ali’s departure, politics in Tunisia are about to get very tough. Having acted so forcefully to oust Ben Ali on January a week ago, Tunisia’s officers may very well get sucked into the political arena despite themselves.

The Egyptian and Libyan publics are the two most likely to be inspired by the ouster of Tunisia’s Ben Ali, and the United States should be pressing Egypt especially to open up politics and allow for competition, says CFR’s Elliott Abrams.

A protester chants slogans as she holds a placard during a demonstration in downtown Tunis January 18, 2011. Tunisia’s new coalition government hit trouble on Tuesday, with three ministers quitting and an opposition party threatening to walk out in protest at the presence of members of the party of the ousted president. The placard reads, "No to a government born of corruption". (Zohra Bensemra/Courtesy Reuters) Hi folks, It was an Tunisia-filled MLK weekend for me. As President  Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family fled to Saudi Arabia, the interim government, led by Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi and President Fouad Mebazaa, sought to create a unity government. Now, that government is facing resignations from a slew of ministers who want change from the new regime. It is yet to be seen what will come from this new unity government, but if you would like a better understanding of the crisis in Tunisia, here are links to my First Take on the situation in Tunisia, as well as my appearances on PRI’s The World, and ABC News.

A man embraces a soldier as protesters walk past soldiers while shouting slogans during a demonstration against Tunisian President Ben Ali in Tunis (STR New/Courtesy Reuters) Update: Hats off to those who saw the unraveling of Ben Ali’s regime coming.  The army moved in today and Ben Ali is no longer in control.  This is good, but only the first phase.  Best that I can tell from Washington, it seems that the military command has understood the demands from Tunisian society.  What they do now is crucial.  I know that the best way to support democracy is to support democracy, but in a way, the military’s intervention (and the way the officers intervened), may yet set the stage for a democratic Tunisia.

Tunisians shout slogans as they demonstrate against Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis; January 14, 2011 (Zoubeir Souissi/Courtesy Reuters)   Over the last few days, I have been glued to my Tunisia-related Twitter feed. Many thanks to all the Twitterati in Tunisia and elsewhere who are keeping those of us on the other side of the earth up-to-date on what’s happening. (Shockingly, the situation has barely rated a mention in the U.S. press over the last month.) It seems Ben Ali will be gone well before 2014, maybe even within the next week. The Tunisian strongman’s conciliatory (fearful?) speech yesterday declaring that he understands the protesters and now there will be more freedom of the press and more democracy is a tried and true method of Middle Eastern strongmen. Raise your hand if you remember the “March 30 Program,” Sadat’s contrition over the shortcomings of infitah in 1980, and the 1989 Algerian constitution? There are others, of course. It is exhilarating to see that the Tunisian people are not buying Ben Ali’s sudden discovery of personal and political freedoms. So what it is the difference between Tunisia and let’s say Algeria or Iran? As Shadi Hamid correctly notes, Algeria’s uprising in the late 1980s was supposed to usher in the Arab world’s first democratic revolution. The same can be said for the Green Revolution agitation during the summer of 2009 that was supposed to bring down the Iranian regime. It is hard to tell exactly why Ben Ali is on the verge collapse, but the Algerian and Iranian governments pulled through. Indeed, there are myriad factors that have contributed to this amazing moment and as I noted in my last post on this topic, many of my colleagues considered Ben Ali’s Tunisia as among the most stable of stable political systems. Preliminarily, it seems that Tunisian military commanders do not want to risk themselves and the coherence of the armed forces to save Ben Ali’s neck. If this is the case, it is because Ben Ali violated the first principle of former military officers who come to power: the care and feeding of their brother officers. According to my friend and former intern, Michael Koplow, who is writing a dissertation on Tunisia, military spending in Tunisia is only something like 1.4 percent of GDP. That’s low compared to the rest of the Arab world. This seems awfully dumb; part of Hosni Mubarak’s “genius” has been his overriding concern to make sure Egypt’s officers get the toys they want. Ben Ali’s military dilemma is the classic problem of balance in civil-military relations. You need officers to protect your regime without them becoming strong enough to be a threat to that regime. Ben Ali has not gotten the balance right. He downgraded the military, and when the time came to support the regime, the officers seem to balking. It’s a win-win situation for the officers to be standing on the sidelines. They won’t be tarred for shooting at protesters and maybe the officers will get more of what they want in the suddenly approaching post-Ben Ali era.

Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali waves to supporters after he took the oath at the national assembly in Tunis (Zoubeir Souissi/Courtesy of Reuters) If you don’t follow the Moor Next Door, check #Tunisia or #SidiBouzid on Twitter, or read the French Press, you would never know that there have been major demonstrations going on throughout Tunisia for the last three weeks. That’s right, Tunisia. The one Arab country with a reputation for actually working relatively well. Never mind the fact that it is one of the worst police states in the world. Here’s what happened: In mid December an unemployed university graduate named Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in the Sidi Bouzid—a city of about 40,000 in the central part of the country. According to reports, Bouazizi’s had grown despondent over the lack of employment, endemic corruption, and the authoritarian political system under strongman Zine Abidine Ben Ali. Bouazizi’s act of protest and desperation produced nationwide protests that lasted through the New Year. The Tunisian government pulled out all the stops, from riot police using tear gas and rubber bullets to shutting down communications networks. At one point Sidi Bouzid was completely cut off from the world. Ben Ali also appeared on television in a speech (during which incidentally his phone rang) to rally supporters, and the regime has begun a propaganda campaign casting the protests as the product of provocateurs interested in stirring up trouble in contrast to a government holding for dialogue. Today, a high school student lit himself on fire. I’ll leave it to others to get down in the weeds on this story, but the situation in Tunisia is in many ways instructive of the idee fixe (sorry…it’s Tunisia. I had to throw in some French) that tends to color much of what professional observers of the Arab world write and say about the Middle East. I am talking about stability. This comes out in a few ways. If you like playing the odds, stability is a pretty good bet. Take a brief tour of the region: with the exception of the Iranian revolution and America’s regime change in Iraq, Middle Eastern political systems seem quite stable and durable. This is an observable phenomenon and some pretty good explanations for the persistence of authoritarian politics in the Arab world, but there is a danger in over-stating the case and getting a bit too comfortable with the “Arab state will muddle through” argument. I recently took part in a small meeting of regional experts in which we were looking at regional political, social, and economic trends. I have written about stability in the region, but I was struck at the way some of my colleagues dismiss the potential for instability and political change in the Middle East. We should all be very careful here: Virtually everyone missed the fall of the Shah in 1979, the revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe a decade later, and the crumbling of the Soviet Union. It may not be the last days of Ben Ali or Mubarak or any other Middle Eastern strongman, but there is clearly something going on in the region. Is it possible that the gendarme states in the region may not be a strong as we believe? To be sure, they have demonstrated flexibility and an enormous capacity to deflect and undermine opposition, but for how long? Forever? That’s a long time. We (Middle East geeks) may be doing ourselves a disservice by playing the odds-on-stability game, especially in light of the failed social contracts, Arab leaders’ willingness to employ violence against there own people, and the limited economic opportunity that led Mohamed Bouazizi to go so far as to dump gasoline over his head and light a match. A month ago, would anyone have predicted that an act like Bouazizi’s would set off major demonstrations throughout Tunisia? Events like the Duweiqa rockslide, Salam Boccacio 98 sinking, the outbreak of swine flue, and car accidents in the Gaza Strip, have the potential to become politically important well beyond the immediate issue at hand. Analysts have no way of predicting whether events like these will have a political impact or not, however. That’s why “tipping point” is not a useful analytic concept. You only know when something is a tipping point after it happens. So how do we know that things might be unraveling in a place like Tunisia, Egypt, or Jordan (where there was rioting in Maan today)? Hard to say. Observers often look for “cracks in the regime” as a telltale sign something is up. There is another side of the equation, however. We should also be looking at society and how it organizes. If, in combination with these fissures, opposition to a regime transforms from episodic and disorganized to broad-based and coherent, that could be a sign that change is possible. The direction of that change is anyone’s guess. In June 2009, many folks thought that the Green Movement protests portended the end of the Islamic Republic, but instead we’ve observed the development of narrower, nastier dictatorship in Tehran. It’s hard to conclude, “we’ll see,” but we’ll just have to see. Some excellent readings on the contingent nature of political change: Timur Kuran’s article “Now Out of Never” Charles Kurzman’s book The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran