The point of taking a stand is this. That girl, and hundreds of millions like her in this region, have heard the United States say that we don’t take sides–that we don’t have a particularly strong feeling about scenes like this. That we insist upon freedom of expression for ourselves, but don’t much see why it should be important to her.

Does my government seriously imagine that she–and everyone like her–will forget that we didn’t take her side? ~Claire Berlinski

Something that has been lost in this discussion is the recognition of how extraordinary it is for the U.S. government to have taken a neutral position when a friendly autocratic Arab government comes up against enormous popular opposition. It would have been unsurprising if American officials had supported Ben Ali’s regime and called for calm. In other circumstances in countries where the U.S. has more perceived security interests at stake, our Secretary of State might have gone so far as the French Foreign Minister did earlier this week to offer assistance in restoring order. As it was, the U.S. stake in who rules Tunisia is relatively small, so there was nothing to be lost by not taking sides. This position turned out to be wiser than I originally guessed.

Ben Ali and his family are now out of power, and publicly the U.S. had no hand in any of it. That could well be the best outcome for Tunisia and the U.S. In any case, the Tunisian protesters have evidently succeeded in forcing Ben Ali out without U.S. support, which can only help make their success appear more legitimate in the eyes of Arab publics elsewhere. There was no reason for the U.S. to insert itself publicly into the dispute, and more important the Tunisian protesters apparently did not need the U.S. to become publicly involved. Tunisians attended to their own affairs, and successfully deposed an autocrat. Instead of dwelling on our failure to meddle publicly, let’s take some satisfaction that Tunisians didn’t need Americans to “speak out” or “take a stand.”

Update: Here is some information on the prime minister who has taken over for the moment as interim president.

Second Update: In some last-minute damage control, France has refused to grant Ben Ali asylum and won’t let him land in Paris. He is reportedly off to the Gulf to find a government that will take him in.

Third Update: Mona Eltahawy reports:

But others saw encouragement from Washington’s reticence. U.S. leaders are “supporting us with their silence,” a Tunisian told me on Twitter. “If they say anything, we will lose.”