Clueless US Analysts On Tunisia

Jennifer Rubin:

One question that deserves further consideration: How much did the emergence of a democratic Iraq have to do with this popular revolt in Tunisia?

Actually, no, it does not deserve any consideration. Some Americans think that Arabs are dumb. As in, really, really dumb. Here’s how one Tunisia expert (a real one this time) describes the attitude of Tunisians to Iraqi “Democracy”:

Hawkins, whose dissertation was about Tunisia, has been coming and going from the country since the late 1980s. He recounted (unprompted) how the word “democracy” had been given a bad name among many of the Tunisian youth (the same sorts who led the uprising against Ben Ali) because of the Iraq experience, “That’s democracy,” a group of Tunisian youths said to him in 2006 of Iraq. “No thanks.”

But that doesn’t prevent American analysts from milking the last bit of undeserved credit from the Tunisia uprising. Here’s another “expert”:

President Obama’s forthright call on “the Tunisian government….to hold free and fair elections in the near future that reflect the true will and aspirations of the Tunisian people” may do more than any Cairo speech to demonstrate to skeptics that his administration is ready to make democratic change in the Arab world

Again. Excuse me? The timid moves by the Obama administration to half-heartedly accept the Tunisian change, AFTER Ben Ali has fled will “demonstate to the skeptics that his administration is ready to make democratic change in the Arab world?” Where do these goofs get their information from?