Today, President Obama will meet with Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, who is marking his first trip to the United States since his democratic election to a five-year term in December 2014.
Tunisia, which America has had unique diplomatic relations with over 200 years since the first agreement of friendship and trade between the two countries in 1799, does matter to the United States. The gateway country to North Africa holds growing strategic importance for the U.S. beyond the symbolic value of a fledging Arab democracy and critically warrants forward-looking enhanced partnership.
Given the ongoing instability and the increase in violent Islamist extremism in the region, advancing strong security and a functioning free market system is a critical formula that the U.S. should be actively promoting in the region, particularly in a country such as Tunisia, which has been making measurable progress largely on its own accord.
Tunisia — the birthplace of people’s uprising for greater freedom in the Arab world in 2011 — has been a rare source of stability and progress. While violent civil conflicts have prevailed elsewhere in the region, Tunisia has decisively pursued a step by step transition to democracy without bloodshed. In 2014, the country made truly remarkable strides, adopting a new constitution, then holding its first full parliamentary and presidential elections under that constitution.
It should not be missed that Tunisians take an increasingly positive view of the United States, an exceptional trend that ought to be seriously taken and further cultivated. A 2014 Gallup poll listed Tunisia among only seven countries in the world where approval ratings for U.S. leaders increased by at least ten percentage points over the previous year.
Indeed, America cannot afford to appear indifferent to the fate of liberty that so many Tunisians have pushed for with determination and courage. A senior adviser to President Essebsi recently gave an unambiguous reminder: “Tunisia is a new member of the club of democracies, and we want to see the leader of the free world say it will do whatever it can to make our transition succeed.”
Moving the goalposts for much needed concrete action, merely conveying promise and diplomatic gesture for greater support is no way to secure America’s vital interests in the region. At a December 2014 Heritage Foundation event, then Tunisia’s Ambassador M’Hamed Ezzine Chelaifa underscored the importance of U.S. engagement and aptly pointed out that:
[Tunisians] are aware that we have to rely on our own potential, vision, and determination to devise and implement the right policies in order to achieve tangible outcomes … Tunisia is committed to a durable partnership with the U.S. Beyond urgencies, we need to elaborate together a new vision for a long-term strategic partnership and shape a new partnership between the two countries that is value-driven, program-based and result-oriented.
For the United States, Tunisia’s embrace of freedom and the rule of law presents not just a historical milestone but a strategic asset of tremendous potential value. It is the best possible opportunity for the U.S. to have, for the first time, a truly democratic partner in the Arab world.
To make the most of this opportunity, America must engage with Tunisia through free trade and by offering other economic and security investment. It is, fundamentally, a matter of reaching out to and supporting Tunisians’ bottom-up pursuit of a nation where freedom, economic opportunity and civil society can flourish.
