Tunisia - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Tunisia Index / Locations Transcripts William Burns ...events in late 2010, the protests in Tunisia that then very quickly begin to sprea... ...had been able to imagine beforehand. Tunisia moved in hindsight at what was a fairl... ...actually moving quite fast at the time. Tunisia was a society where there was a habi... ...understand is the knock-on effect from Tunisia , and then the huge demonstrations tha... ...Husni [al Sayyid] Mubarak, whereas Tunisia was consequential in the sense that i... ...at which this became more than just Tunisia and Egypt but a regional sense, an... ...couldn't neatly transpose lessons from Tunisia or Egypt to Libya, except the basi... ...what happened on either side of them in Tunisia and Egypt helped propel forward th... ...on an interagency group had met in Tunisia , as I recall, with some senio... ...in Libya, even more than in Egypt or Tunisia , very conscious of the many differen... ...first was that after the experiences of Tunisia and Egypt, where you had seen th... ...sort of cautiously optimistic about—the Tunisia transition actually didn't look bad... ...That was certainly true in Egypt and Tunisia at that time. So it wasn't as if th... ...the backdrop of the experiences in Tunisia and Egypt in particular, where you ha... ...some possibilities to amplify, like in Tunisia today, that you try to invest in tha... Show more... Anne Patterson ...because the underlying factors in Tunisia really were different. The military wa... Anne-Marie Slaughter ...making sense of the events in Egypt, Tunisia , Syria? Largely the role of socia... ...revolutions, even before we saw Tunisia , and that was December of 2010. He ha... ...the third week of January 2011. Again, Tunisia had happened, but I was mostly doin... Samantha Power ...in Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Yemen, or Tunisia was interacting with governments an... ...again and again to bribe police in Tunisia to just be able to have a livelihood... ...after wave of political protests in Tunisia , in a really concentrated period o... ...-nine days—culminating in the leader of Tunisia [Zine El Abidine Ben Ali], the corrup... ...the corrupt and oppressive leader of Tunisia , vacating Tunisia, and basicall... ...oppressive leader of Tunisia, vacating Tunisia , and basically fleeing the country—... ...we would have referred to that as the Tunisia protests. And we would have focused o... ...the flight of Ben Ali, the president of Tunisia , and his corruption, and hi... ...his repression, and the prospects that Tunisia now had to go in a differen... ...But the protests began. And now, with Tunisia and Egypt, of course, we're not talkin... ...government?” And that had succeeded in Tunisia in a short period of time. In Egypt, i... ...instance, which itself, as we saw in Tunisia , needn't have been a travesty fo... ...on the ground as we had in Egypt and Tunisia in Libya, but not as much expertise... ...And as people had seen Ben Ali leave Tunisia —although Egypt and Libya coincided ... ...they were really looking at Egypt and Tunisia , and saying, “This is our future... ...Ben Ali did not want to face in Tunisia , Qaddafi—he had no shame. He wa... ...was an operation, I think, set up in Tunisia . There were ideas about doin... ...signal that you're—we've already had Tunisia and Egypt at that point, and Obama ver... Show more... Colin Kahl ...changes in—political tumult in Tunisia , Egypt, Libya, throughout th... ...note that said Ben Ali had just fled Tunisia , and he kind of showed me the note. ... ...the note. I wasn't following events in Tunisia very closely, but even my eyebrows kin... ...Bouazizi] lighting himself on fire in Tunisia , leading to the crumbling of the Be... ...and especially after Egypt. Because Tunisia is an important country, but at the en... Denis McDonough ...days of this uprising in Syria, Libya, Tunisia . So the question at that point was... Hillary Clinton ...was happening as the protests in Tunisia began to spread to Egypt and throughou... ...seen for years in the region. When Tunisia happened, at first it did seem like ... ...by a police officer. I had been to Tunisia as first lady, and I knew that it was ... ...when this happened to the man in Tunisia , all of a sudden it became a rallyin... ...outcome. Ben Ali has been forced out of Tunisia . He's taken refuge, I guess, in Saud... ...that has struggled to maintain it is Tunisia . I was deeply involved with th... ...with the various factions within Tunisia , and relieved that they did not resor... ...but also the United States, would give Tunisia more help, because they're the onl... ...we could do something like that in Tunisia —or, we tried to do something like tha... ...we tried to do something like that in Tunisia . We should go back and try to do it... Show more... Antony Blinken ...folks with the—that fruit vendor in Tunisia [Mohamed Bouazizi] and the popula... ...the region. It was one thing in Tunisia , but of course when it spread an... ...spread in protests as they spread from Tunisia to Egypt? How were you learning abou... Wendy Sherman ...cart owner who put himself on fire in Tunisia [Mohamed Bouazizi] set off a rethink o... Leon Panetta ...you making sense of what was going on? Tunisia , Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, i... 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