REALISM'S RELENTLESS MARCH FROM DEFEAT TO DEFEAT:

Tunisia: trouble in paradise: The protests in Tunisia reflect an underlying dissatisfaction with the government that stretches years back. (Intissar Kherigi, 03 Jan 2011, Al Jazeera)

The plight of Tunisia demonstrates the fallacy of the US mantra of "stability over democracy". A guiding principle of US and European policies in the region, this equation has turned out to be a false choice and an extremely dangerous assumption.

US and European governments have consistently privileged one limb of the "stability-democracy" equation, on the grounds that the repression of entire populations in the Arab world is but a small price to pay for the stable conditions necessary for us to benefit from the vast economic opportunities in the region and the counter-terrorism assistance they can give us.

However, the frequent outbreaks of political turmoil across the region demonstrate that stability and democracy are not part of a zero-sum game but two sides of the same coin. The US government has itself come to this conclusion, noting on the White House website in 2007 that "on 9/11, we realised that years of pursuing stability to promote peace left us with neither… The pre-9/11 status quo was dangerous and unacceptable".

Yet, despite full knowledge of the extent of despotism in the country (as revealed in the US cables from the US ambassador to the country), the US continues to ply the regime with financial, political and military support.

In seeking to maintain the corrosive status quo, America and Europe have contributed to creating unstable societies on the brink of implosion, leading to the disintegration of the equation altogether, while destroying any moral claims to be the legitimate expounders of human rights values in the process.