While Tunisia has been held up as a model of democratic transition since its 2011 uprising, the country is also caught up in a struggle with Islamist militancy.

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Exactly five years after the Arab Spring, Tunisia's revolutionary achievements have disappeared. Once considered the country that resisted the chaos that took over most of the MENA region after 2011, it seems to be sliding back into its pre-revolutionary situation. There is only one cause for this: poor leadership.

Could it possibly be that a Bush III administration will revive the use of torture against the Islamic state, an organization that owes its existence to the U.S.'s disastrous occupation of Iraq? And so our country prepares to wrong the wrongs of the past.

The dream of a country untainted by corruption has remained a powerful vision ever since. It is hard to imagine a more demoralizing step for Tunisians than suddenly telling them that they need to make their peace with a kleptocracy.