The Wrong Man to Promote Democracy
By KAMEL LABIDI

CAIRO — This week, President Bush played host to President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali of Tunisia, giving this ruthless autocrat a long-coveted audience at the White House. To his credit, Mr. Bush rebuked Mr. ben Ali for his violations of press freedom, but the United States is sorely mistaken if it believes that democracy and the rule of law can ever take hold under leaders like Mr. ben Ali. The Bush administration's welcome of Mr. ben Ali makes America's aggressive promotion of democratic reform in the Arab world ring hollow.

It's not obvious from Mr. Bush's public statements, but Tunisia today is one of the world's most efficient police states. Since his ouster of President Habib Bourguiba in a coup in 1987, Mr. ben Ali has quashed virtually all dissent and silenced a civil society that once was an example of vibrancy for North Africa and the neighboring Middle East. In the early 1990's, the regime cracked down on the country's Islamist movement, arbitrarily arresting thousands of suspected activists and subjecting them to torture and unfair trials. Mr. ben Ali then extended his crackdown to human rights defenders, opposition leaders and independent journalists. (I, for example, was stripped of my accreditation after 19 years as a journalist following the publication of an interview with a human rights advocate.)