CNN 2011-01-28

4,000 miles away from U.S. shores, is only a little larger than the state of Georgia, and has a population about 30 times smaller than America's. The uprising that drove out Tunisia's longtime president may not be on many Americans' radar 1, but experts say it should be.

“If I'm a textiles analyst 2 in Chicago or I work at a Walmart in Galveston, why should I care about what's happening in Tunisia?”

“You might not care about what's happening in Tunisia, Per se, but you should care about what lesson it sends to the rest of the region, where there are many countries with which the United States has very close ties and which are very important to the U.S. in terms of price of oil or the war against terrorism.”

Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group is talking about countries very close to Tunisia that have had the same kinds of problems, but where the stakes are much higher for America. Tunisia's revolt started with younger citizens fed up with high unemployment, rising costs of living and a corrupt 3 federal government. Similar problems are occurring in Egypt. There, like in Tunisia, a protester set himself on fire. And the same thing could happen in Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. The common factors in all these countries? They've all been ruled for a long time by single autocratic rulers. They're all key U.S. allies in the war on terror. And they have all been struggling to fight off some very dangerous Islamist militant 4 groups.Here's something Americans can relate to, this tweet from Cairo: "Today, Ben Ali, tomorrow, Hosni Mubarak." Today, it's Tunisia's president. Tomorrow, could it be Egypt's? Egypt's regime isn't under as much pressure as Tunisia's was yet.“

”The discontent is there. It's bubbling over continuously. It's not in our interests to try to keep this lid down artificially because, ultimately, the explosion will be even worse later on than it would be in the short term.“

And revolutions in places like Egypt could lead to Islamic militants 5 or other radicals 6 taking power or at least having more room to operate than they do now.

”We saw it on 9/11 and we will see it again. What happens in the Middle East, what happens in the Arab world can have a direct impact on our own security.“

But analysts 7 say there's a positive flip 8 side if this is a successful transition to democracy in Tunisia. And it's another reason Americans should pay attention. If it leads to more social and economic freedoms, they say, more people in the Middle East will see how that works, will see the alternative to militant Islam. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.