"The Americans didn’t mind if France got its claws in Libya which would be a mess for a long time and therefore be more France’s problem than the U.S.’s. Besides Washington could argue this time that it was France that was too quick on the trigger taking a little pressure off what the U.S. was doing unsuccessfully in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and unofficially in Yemen, Somalia and who knows where else. In the end Tunisia would be a much easier country to `help rebuild’, Libya more difficult. A U.S. foothold in Tunisia has its own strategic logic, in line perhaps with AFRICOM plans for Africa? Not a bad deal.

Let’s look at the chain of events.

There were signs – today not all that difficult to read – that the U.S. was at least positioning itself for a post Ben Ali future. It is not that the U.S. engineered the changes, but more that in the Tunisan case, they tried jumping on a running horse rather than blowing it out of existence with bunker busters, smart bombs and torture.

First there some of the WikiLeaks dealing with Tunisia making it clear that the State Department had no illusions about Ben Ali’s lack of popularity, his repressive politics and the money-grabbing nature of the crudely nouveau riche Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans.

The statements of the current U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia, Gordon Gray, himself a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco I am told, has consistently praised the transition away from Ben Ali-ism and seems to have played a role in the emerging U.S. approach

The evidence is mounting that the U.S. was not unhappy to see Ben Ali go and when they had the opportunity, let that be known to General Ammar through the medium of AFRICOM commander William Ward. The suggestion that came with Ward’s comments – made either directly or in a more coded manner – was like manna from Heaven for Ammar. he could assume, rightly or wrongly, that the weight of the United States was behind him, helping prop up his confidence to stand down Ben Ali."