This paper starts with the historical fact that Ben-Ali, the recently deposed ruler of Tunisia, came to rule the country after in 1985 the governments of Italy and Algeria had developed doubts as to President Bourguiba’s ability to secure the gas pipeline that has been under construction from Algeria, through Tunisia and Sicily, to the Industrial centers in Northern Italy. The pipeline was projected as an artery in the social and cultural body that was to be created across the Sea. In talking about the pipeline, its promoters went further and invoked the long history of exchange that, so they hoped, would be reborn by the pipeline’s construction. And since such organic vision for the connection of members of the NATO and Soviet blocs met fervent objection, a debate ensued in Italy regarding the terms of connection that country should have with Algeria and Tunisia. Rather than an instance of the rise and fall of the influence of Empire in North Africa, the last thirty years in Tunisian history should be therefore regarded through the prism of cross-Mediterranean connections. Moreover, once we locate gas infrastructure projects in the longer history of exchanges between Sicily and Tunisia, we can see both the ways in which this transregional geography has informed the recent history and the specific shape such conditions took since World War II.