There are two important precepts to be learned in the wake of the popular uprising that forced long-time Tunisian President Zinbe El Abidine Ben Ali from office last week. One is that autocratic rulers burnished by a veneer of democracy are an endangered species in the Arab world. The other is that the United States will have to take a new approach to change in the Muslim world. If it does not, it risks losing influence among the increasingly influential young and educated Arab advocates of reform.
The long-simmering discontent that toppled Ben Ali is not a new phenomenon. Similar grass-roots movements in the last two decades or so have brought fundamental political change to many places in Eastern Europe and in Asia. The movement is now finding a foothold in the Muslim world. Ben Ali is unlikely to be the only long-term ruler to run afoul of popular and public discontent.
That scenario creates problems for the United States. Heretofore, U.S. foreign policy has tended to overlook Arab leaders' despotic tendencies as long as they and their governments served U.S. interests, i.e., the fight against terrorism. If that was the case, the U.S. officials glossed over the often harsh rule that stifled economic opportunity and political freedom. The successful Tunisian revolt suggests that the United States will have to revise that policy - or become a target of those seeking change.
It is increasingly obvious that young Arabs no longer quietly accept life in a society that pays lip service to democratic ideals but fails to deliver on that promise. The old ways of maintaining power over large and discontented populations - an intrusive police or military presence, control of financial and social infrastructure, manipulation of public opinion and communication - no longer work. Young Tunisians proved that. They used cell phones and social networks like Twitter to mount a campaign that forced Ben Ali from office.
U.S. officials will have to amend their views on leaders like Ben Ali. Their system of governance is now untenable in countries where youngsters have ready access to information from far freer societies, despite officials' efforts to prevent it.
If the United States wants to continue to have a major role in the moderate Arab world, it has to balance praise for reformers with the ongoing U.S. need for the support those countries provide for U.S. foreign policy. That's a delicate position to seek and to hold.
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton already have taken steps to match U.S. goals to events in Tunisia. They've expressed support for reform and for free elections there. That's a commendable policy that can be employed usefully toward other nations where demands for political and economic freedom understandably threaten a questionable status quo.