Staged and Shamed: How Kaïs Saied Used the U.S. to Boost His Regime

In the gilded halls of Carthage Palace, Tunisian President Kaïs Saied delivered what was meant to look like a principled stand. In reality, it was a carefully choreographed ambush. When Massad Boulos, adviser to Donald Trump on Arab and African affairs, arrived in Tunis, he was met not with the customary decorum of diplomacy, but with a solemn and theatrical display: graphic images of Palestinian suffering, accusations of genocide, and a scathing indictment of Israeli policy. There was no attempt at dialogue, no pretense of cooperation. It was a lecture and a performance.

The tragedy unfolding in Gaza is real, and it warrants global attention. But so too is the political manipulation that often cloaks itself in righteous outrage. That an authoritarian figure like Kaïs Saied was the one delivering the message, and that the United States handed him the platform to do so, is what should trouble policymakers in Washington. Whether out of naïveté or miscalculation, the U.S. gifted a struggling strongman the opportunity to polish his image at their expense, and Saied seized it with precision.

What played out in Tunis was not an isolated misstep. It was part of a well-worn script used by autocrats across the region, a performance steeped in ambiguity, crafted to appeal to Western sensitivities while masking the hard truth of domestic repression. When legitimacy falters at home, when economies collapse and dissent simmers, the Palestinian cause becomes the go-to refuge. It offers moral cover, international headlines, and a distraction from domestic decay. From Tehran to Algiers, and now Tunis, the tactic is the same.

Facing Tunisia’s most severe crisis in decades, economic freefall, international isolation, and an erosion of civil liberties, Saied resorted to this playbook. The display wasn’t meant to advance Palestinian rights. It was meant to deflect, to rally support, and to reframe himself as a moral voice in a region where he’s anything but.

This is a man who suspended parliament, dismantled judicial independence, jailed journalists, and crushed dissent. This is a leader who revived ties with Bashar al-Assad, the architect of mass atrocities against the Syrian people. Thousands of children were murdered under Assad’s regime, gassed, burned, and bombed, yet Saied saw no contradiction in welcoming him back into the diplomatic fold. To denounce Israeli brutality while embracing the butcher of Damascus isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s moral bankruptcy.

The meeting with Boulos offered Saied something he rarely gets these days: international validation. And he used it not to engage, but to perform. He wasn’t speaking to America; he was speaking through America, to a domestic audience he hopes to galvanize and to regional powers drawn to the toxic blend of populism and authoritarianism he now embodies. The message was clear: I stand defiant, I resist pressure, I defend Palestine. Never mind the Tunisians enduring rising poverty, censorship, and fear under his rule.

What did Washington expect to gain from this encounter? Influence? Leverage? The result was a photo op turned political weapon. And it underscores a deeper problem: the U.S. continues to treat repressive regimes as if they are rational actors in a shared rules-based order. But today’s autocrats aren’t just governing, they’re staging performances, and unless America understands that, it will continue being cast in roles it never auditioned for.

What makes this all the more damaging is the silence that follows. As Saied brands political opponents as traitors, lashes out at NGOs, and tightens his grip on power, Washington offers little more than muted concern. In trying not to interfere, it inadvertently enables, signaling that the theater works, that ambiguity pays off, that the show can go on.

And in the end, it’s the Palestinian cause that suffers. It deserves real defenders, leaders who fight for dignity abroad and uphold it at home. Not those who wave images of the dead while presiding over a nation in despair.

There is no shame in seeking dialogue. But diplomacy requires clarity, preparation, and strength of purpose — especially when engaging with leaders skilled in manipulation and spectacle. In Tunis, Massad Boulos was not outmaneuvered; he was unprepared. Tasked with representing a strategic vision for U.S. engagement in the region, he allowed himself to become a passive participant in KaïsSaied’s political theater.

We may never know what was truly said behind closed doors. American diplomacy may have preferred to deliver its messages discreetly. But in the court of public perception, the effect was disastrous. The images served Saied, not the mission Boulos was sent to defend. Far from strategic diplomacy, it was a miscalculation that offered Saied the perfect optics: a stage to posture, a foreign guest to legitimize him, and a headline to mask his domestic failures.

Ghazi Ben Ahmed