The World

Tunisia is a small country – but right now it is anything but insignificant. The way in which its government is being rocked by street protests is being watched right across the Middle East. (The street protests in Tunis are on the front pages of the papers here in Abu Dhabi.) That is because events in Tunisia could serve as a model – for better or worse – for other larger Arab nations, with similar political dilemmas.

President Ben-Ali of Tunisia, who has now magnanimously agreed not to run for re-election in 2014, is seventy-four years old and has been in power for more than twenty years. He runs an autocratic, pro-western government, with a young population angered by high unemployment, corruption and police brutality. Rising food prices are also contributing to unrest.

It is all strangely reminiscent of Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak is now 82-years-old – and has not yet announced whether he will run for re-election later this year. Will his attitude be affected by developments in Tunisia?

By the time, President Mubarak makes his decision, events may also have moved on in Algeria. Street protests have broken out there, as well.

The potential for unrest is not confined to North Africa. Saudi Arabia, the only Arab country that is a member of the G20, also fits the profile. King Abdullah is now in his eighties and is ailing. Despite its massive oil wealth, the country also suffers from high youth unemployment. (And yet, for all that, Saudi youngesters would, it seems, never dream of looking for work in the Gulf States – all the people doing relatively menial work here in Abu Dhabi seem to be Filipinos or South Asians.)

It is the fate of the big strategic countries – Egypt and Saudi Arabia – that will be most worrying their western allies. American policy has gone backwards and forwards. In the wake of 9/11, the Americans decided that the Saudi autocracy was thoroughly corrupt and was stoking up radicalism in the Middle East. In 2005 Condi Rice, then Secretary of State, made a famous speech in Cairo calling for democratic reforms in the region. But the election of Hamas in Gaza demonstrated to the Americans that Islamists were quite likely to win free elections. The House of Saud and Hosni Mubarak suddenly looked like quite good bets, again.

Now the Americans seem to be tentatively re-embracing the cause of reform in the Middle East. Perhaps, they have been spooked by events in Tunisia. In any case, Hillary Clinton has just made a big speech down the coast in Qatar, calling for social and political reforms. The Americans seem to be trying to get ahead of events. But I suspect events will get ahead of them.