This acknowledgement of the failure of political Islam has met the mood of the new generation of protesters in Tunisia. The new Arab generation is not motivated by religion or ideology, but by the aspiration for a peaceful transition to a decent, democratic and “normal” government. They just want to be like the others.

The Tunisian revolt helps clarify a reality about Arab life: The terrorism we’ve seen over the past few years, with its utopian millennialism, doesn’t stem from the real societies of the Middle East. More Islamic radicals are to be found in the West than at home.

To be sure, the picture differs from country to country. The post-Islamist generation is more visible in North Africa than in Egypt or Yemen, not to speak of Pakistan, which is a collapsing country. But everywhere in the Arab Middle East, the generation that is leading the protest against dictatorship does not have an Islamist character.

This is not to say there are no big challenges ahead. There are indeed many: how to find political leaders who can live up to popular expectations; how to avoid anarchy; how to reconstruct political and social bonds that have been deliberately destroyed by dictatorial regimes and rebuild a civil society. But there is at least one immediate question raised by the Tunisian revolution.

Why is the West still supporting most of the Middle East dictatorships even as this democratic surge roils across the region?

The answer in the past, of course, has been that the West sees authoritarian regimes as the best bulwark against Islamism. That was the rationale behind its support for the cancellation of the elections in Algeria in 1992, for turning a blind eye on the rigging of the Egyptian elections, and for ignoring the choice of the Palestinians in Gaza.

In light of the Tunisian experience, this approach must be re-evaluated. In the first place, these regimes are no longer a reliable bulwark. They could just collapse at anytime. Second, what are they a bulwark against if the new generation is post-Islamist and pro-democratic?