WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, on Tuesday, joined Lise Grande, President and CEO of the U.S. Institute of Peace, to discuss Tunisia’s turn towards authoritarianism and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. 

“I think we are looking at a country today, that on its current path, has no real role for the Tunisian people in making a collective decision about the nation's future, and the United States can't continue business as usual. We've got to make some decisions about what our policy will be. The Biden administration has, I think, made a bet on the Tunisian military…I would argue that we should make a bet on civil society instead and that we should be trying to do some significant things today to try to put power in the hands of the people, rather than putting power in the hands of the military that has largely stood by, acquiesced, and sometimes facilitated Saied’s transition away from democracy,” Murphy said.

Murphy added: “This administration has made it clear that they want to lead with American values, but at some point in the region of the Middle East and North Africa, you have to walk the walk on democracy, not just talk the talk. And my concern is that whether you are looking at U.S. policy towards the Gulf, Egypt, or Tunisia, we talk the talk on elevating democracy and human rights, but we don’t necessarily always walk the walk…People are noticing that we still stay in business with brutal dictators, we still fund regimes that move away from democratic norms – Tunisia at the top of the list – and I think it becomes hard to claim that your priority is democracy and human rights and the rule of law if you don’t change your policy when governments start to change their commitment to participatory democracy.”

On the failures of our foreign policy toolkit, Murphy said: “Our inability to keep even little Tunisia on a path to democracy tells us that something is broken inside of our foreign policy toolkit, and that’s why I will continue to argue that our decision to have more employees of military grocery stores than we have diplomats in the State Department is a really, really bad bet for the United States going forward.”

Murphy concluded: “I think that when we step back and have a full discussion about what has happened in Tunisia and what has happened with the US-Tunisia relationship over the past few years, it's a story about Saied, it's a story about the failure of Tunisian democracy and Tunisian political leaders to deliver for their country, but it's also about a failure of American foreign policy to provide the support for nascent democracies and democracy movements around the world that they desperately need, as opposed to the level of support that we are able to deliver to militaries around the world when they come calling to the United States.” 

Last month, Murphy asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken why the State Department’s FY24 budget request maintains FY23 levels of military aid to Tunisia despite its democratic backsliding. 

Watch the full event here.

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