What is it with the wives of despots?  Leïla Ben Ali (Baba), ex-first lady of Tunisia and a former hairdresser, makes her escape from the country her hubby and her relatives raped, but not before a brief stop at the bank where she demands and receives one-and-a-half tons of gold—worth 67 million big ones—which she takes on a private jet and flies away with.  Goodbye Tunisia, hello Saudi Arabia, now the ultimate destination of Muslim crooks, a trend started by President Idi Amin of Uganda, a character straight out of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief.

Leïla has left no cliché unturned when it comes to unbridled greed and Caligula-like indulgences featuring fast luxury cars—more than 50 for herself alone—multiple grand houses scattered around the globe, and numerous shopping excursions to Dubai, where two large airliners would be filled to the brim with goodies for Madame la Présidente, all paid for with state funds.  Five billion dollars is the estimated wealth of the Ben Ali (Babas), now resting comfortably with their fellow Muslim hosts, the Saudi “royals,” themselves ex-camel drivers posing as custodians of Saudi oil wealth.  (For “wealth,” read “palaces, yachts, airplanes, hookers, and whiskey.”)

Leïla liked the good life, one she was not accustomed to at an earlier age.  She used to fly in luxury goodies by plane, including ice cream from Saint-Tropez, something that eluded my attention all these years.  Saint-Tropez is known for its fast and easy women, expensive nightclubs, and vulgar nouveau-riche show-offs—but its ice cream?  Mind you, it’s always like this.  Behind every powerful man with a totalitarian bent, there’s a little scheming Lady Macbeth pulling the strings.  One who quickly comes to mind is Imelda Marcos, who fled the Philippines for Hawaii, leaving behind 1,000 handbags, 3,000 pairs of shoes, and 15 mink coats.  The supposed billions the “iron butterfly” stole have never been found, and she’s back home in Manila at present planning to run for parliament.  She calls herself the grandmother of the nation.

My favorite is Grace Mugabe, wife of the psychopath Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe—once the breadbasket of Africa, now a hellhole whose people are dying from hunger and disease thanks to his anti-white policies.  Whenever Grace flies off to some European or Asian capital she relieves the national bank of Zimbabwe of the few foreign-exchange funds left in its depleted coffers.  Before a Hong Kong spree in 2009 Racy Gracie withdrew $100,000 and change.  She is believed to own the obligatory 3,000 pairs of shoes.

Who started the trend?  That’s hard to answer, but I suppose Eva Perón could be the role model.  Eva raided the national coffers when the Argentine economy was booming, and by the time she had finished buying silk shirts for her fans—los descamisados—the country was broke and has remained broke ever since.  Another big spender was Michèle Duvalier, Baby Doc’s squeeze, who spent five million greenbacks for her wedding in Haiti back in 1980, and who dropped Baby Doc once in exile in France when the stolen funds they had flown off with became scarce.

So, will other Arab dominos fall after Tunisia, and will there be less shopping by, say, Queen Rania of Jordan, who I’m told is no slouch when it comes to spending Jordanian dinars, or whatever that poor country’s currency is called?  The Hashemite dynasty has always been friendly to the West, as well it should be, since it was Winston Churchill who installed them in Jordan after the camel drivers had driven them out of Saudi Arabia.  The trouble is, Jordan is next to Israel, and the Israelis want Jordan to become Palestine, and never mind what the Palestinians want.  The Israelis are fully aware that the reason no Arab country can threaten them is because of the structural causes of discontent beneath the surface.  There is a major failure in the pact between the rulers and the ruled.  Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Syria—all are ruled by autocrats who promise a lot and deliver very little.  Iraq, incidentally, is a perfect example of why Arab rulers can’t hack it.  Millions of people displaced, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead and maimed for life, one trillion dollars spent by Uncle Sam, and the only good news is that there’s no Leïla Ben Ali in Iraq, or if there is, she’s keeping an awfully low profile.

My fearless prediction is that Tunisia is no tipping point for the Arabs.  All the autocrats will do is tell their wives to cool it, and they will continue to oppress and exploit their people.  Another good piece of news is that the Saudi towelheads might also cool it and stay away from my favorite fleshpots, like the South of France and the Greek islands.  It is a victory of sorts, and I for one salute the Tunisians for kicking the Ali Babas out, but unlike my fellow pundits who are predicting a new Arab dawn, I say not bloody likely.  Perhaps only a bit less shopping, that’s all, folks!