The country that set off the Arab Spring of 2011 is now widely hailed as its only success story. However, the factors that have aided the formation of the post-2011 Tunisian Republic cannot be counted on to sustain it. The country’s ongoing transition is, in fact, deeply contested by forces both inside and outside the nation. Despite significant aid from the U.S. and other Western countries, Tunisia remains beset with tremendous security, governance, and economic challenges. Moreover, Tunisia’s enemies like Islamic State and others are seeking to further splinter the republic along numerous societal fault lines to advance their own interests.

President Obama’s election was warmly greeted in Egypt by both the country’s leader and population. In Cairo, Obama promised a new beginning, not only in America’s relationship with Egypt, but the whole Muslim world. By the time he left office, the American Egyptian relationship was in shambles. In this essay, Samuel Tadros examines the illusions that shaped Obama’s adventure in Egypt in pursuit of an imaginary transition to democracy, offering a cautionary tale for the Trump administration. If the US Egyptian alliance is to be strengthened and Egypt is to survive the regional upheaval, President Trump should forgo the illusions Washington holds about the country and base his strategy toward Egypt not on Egypt as it should be, but on Egypt as it is.

“At this rate Copts will be extinct in 100 years. They will die, leave, convert or get killed,” a friend wrote on Facebook as news broke of the latest bloody attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians. Less than two months ago, while attending church in Cairo on Palm Sunday, my friend told me she’d mused to herself that it was a blessing her daughter wasn’t with her: If there was a bombing, at least her child would survive.

Christianity was born in pain in the country. An attack on a holy day is another bloody symbol of its beginnings.