Tunisia's Interior Ministry says it has lifted a curfew imposed a month ago amid deadly protests that overthrew the longtime president.
The ministry said, however, that it is extending a state of emergency amid uncertainty about the country's future.
Tunisia may not be the biggest piece of the geopolitics board, but being any size democracy in the Arab world is a big deal that we should work to achieve.
There are a lot of ways to subvert the democratic impulse, and the elites won't give up their privileges without trying all of them.
UPDATE: More on Tunisia's background. And an interesting comment on the effects of the election of President Obama. While the reported sentiments on our progression from presidents 41 to 44 seem ridiculous to me (not that they aren't common on Daily Kos and other far left sites, I'm sure), given their environment of seeing father autorcrats groom sons to take power, it is understandable that their explanation makes sense to them.
I hoped that the election of President Obama would have a good effect on our relations abroad as a celebration of real democracy here, no matter my misgivings about the man in particular (as I've thought, it is good we demonstrated we would elect a Black man; I'm sorry it was this Black man. Still, he hasn't been as bad as I feared on counter-terrorism and Iraq, and he has shown a commitment to Afghansitan, so I'm not completely bummed). I think I mentioned that as a general hope. I know I mentioned it in regard to Iraq where the Iraqi military could watch firsthand our military obeying a perhaps unlikely new president in a demonstration of civilian control of the military.
Tunisia may be the first country to act on that hope. As the cited article indicates, Tunisia is perhaps the most fertile ground in the Arab world to build a democracy. So even though it doesn't have oil or a canal or nuclear ambitions, let's get to work in Tunisia so that if there are other Tunisias down the road, we like what "becoming Tunisia" means.
It is ironic that a president who so thoroughly rejected the freedom agenda of Bush 43 may be the best placed to carry it out. Will he?
