Abstrakt: |
The United States has had diplomatic relations with Tunisia from the beginning of its existence as an independent country. "Over 200 years of friendship" have characterised these relations according to the website of the US embassy in Tunis. The website also refers to the first Agreement of Friendship and Trade between the two countries in March 1799 and the establishment of the first American consulate in Tunis in January 1800 as key dates for the beginning of these relations, but skips a long period extending from 1815 to 1956 when Tunisia became an independent state and the US recognised it. In the light of the Tunisian Revolution extending to the so-called 'Arab spring', the apparent growing interest in Tunisia as a potential laboratory for democracy in the region as shown in the American media, visits made by US congressmen and senior state officials and the declarations and promises for supporting Tunisia's democratic transition and the implications that the recent changes could have for the US-Tunisian relations and US-North African relations more generally, a fresh review of US diplomacy in Tunisia is imperative for a better understanding of the US-Tunisian relations today and the way they are likely to develop after the domino effect the Tunisian revolution has had so far. This timely article is, therefore, a reassessment of these relations during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It seeks to explain the nature, the process, motives and the outcome of US-Tunisian diplomatic relations during the period under review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |