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Join on Telegram In his Green March-commemorating speech on November 6, King Mohammed VI once again extended an olive branch to Algeria. The monarch offered Morocco’s eastern neighbor the opportunity to have access to the Atlantic within the framework of the Moroccan Atlantic Initiative for the benefit of land-locked countries in the Sahel region.
In contrast to Morocco, with its two sea fronts on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Algeria is practically a semi-landlocked country, with a coastline that extends only to the Mediterranean Sea. For many years, Algeria has been trying to change this geopolitical limitation by attempting to undermine Morocco’s territorial integrity.
This long-standing ambition to have access to the Atlantic is the reason why the Algerian regime has been nurturing the self-styled “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic” on its soil for half a century, providing it with financial, military and diplomatic assistance.
But as the global momentum continues to shift decisively in Morocco’s favor, burying the Algerian-nurtured separatist dream, Algeria should take up the Moroccan monarch’s offer if it is truly interested in a political, mutually accepted solution to the artificial conflict over the Moroccan Sahara. The soviet-style military parade of the Algerian army on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Algerian revolution, to which Morocco had contributed significantly, was meant to send a strong signal “to its classical enemy, Morocco.”
Algeria has been a military hardware hoarder for many years. In 2023, Algeria was the 4th client of the Russian military industry after China. However, it was odd to notice among the tanks and other weaponry featured in the parade some dating back to the Soviet-Union era. With the drone and AI technologies having made this kind of weapons vulnerable as evidenced by the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the war in Ukraine, Algiers should know better than to project military prowess and invincibility with such equipment.
Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs Charles Maurice de Talleyrand once said, “You can do whatever you want with a bayonet except sit on it.” And this is precisely the Algerian quandary: the strategy of acquiring more military assets to impress Morocco has played against its economic interests. The country is perceived as investor-unfriendly because of the excessive power of the army in policy decision-making, a tradition that long starved the Algerian economy from much-needed international capital and foreign investment.
By contrast, Morocco with no hydrocarbon revenues, has been able to adopt a smart energy mix strategy based on a sizable share of renewable resources while engaging in automotive and aeronautics strategy. If global players such as Renault-Nissan, Peugeot, Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, Airbus and Safran (to name a few) have placed their confidence in Morocco, they must have good reasons to do so.
Good fences make for good neighbors
“The essential ingredient of politics is timing,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once said. With the reelection of President Donald Trump to the White House, we should, as Moroccan observers of US politics, feel entitled to ask ourselves how President Trump’s comeback, with his fondness for fences, could help Morocco better fence its eastern borders.
The US recognition of Morocco’ sovereignty over its southern provinces, as enacted by President Trump in December 2020, was indeed a game changer. But, for many Moroccans, that historic decision was more like an overture in a music partition. We are waiting for the other musical movements to follow. In other words, we expect, for one thing, that Donald Trump’s new presidency could be marked by the official opening of the US consulate in Dakhla.
With Morocco flexing its muscles as a major African economic hub, reinforced in this position by the Atlantic Initiative spearheaded by the royal leadership, the Moroccan Sahara is now perceived not only as a strategic nexus between Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, but also as an economic corridor for SAI and sub-Saharan countries to export globally through the port of Dakhla and the port of Tanger Med-Zone.
It is an established fact that Morocco’s connectivity strategy has transformed the country into a major logistics player in the global supply chain. Morocco ranked 22nd worldwide and 2nd in Africa in this year’s Agility Emerging Markets Logistics. American companies stand to gain by investing more aggressively in the Moroccan Sahara, where there are rewarding opportunities to be seized. A U.S. consulate in the region could facilitate access to the services these companies need in a cost-effective manner, both in terms of time and paperwork.
Expect more Algerian KO as the US and France back Morocco within the UN Security Council
The Moroccan diplomatic approach in dealing with the Moroccan Sahara issue for more than half a century, both within the UN Security Council and bilaterally, has been commendable and effective. The royal directives in this regard are far-sighted. In fact, especially game-changing has been King Mohammed VI’s insistence that Morocco will henceforth evaluate its bilateral relations through the lens of its partners’ positions on the Moroccan Sahara has been effective in convincing many of them to adopt a clear position in favor of the Moroccan autonomy initiative.
Previously, some countries engaged in laborious diplomatic balancing acts between Morocco and Algeria in order to advance their interests with both. But for some allies and friends, staying in the “comfort zone,” as Minister Nasser Bourita put it, no longer meets Morocco’s legitimate expectations.
Now that France has joined the United States in recognizing Morocco’s territorial integrity, their combined efforts in the Security Council will certainly make a difference in bringing this issue to a close. However, the political solution to be negotiated between the two protagonists, Morocco and Algeria, on the basis of the recognized autonomy initiative presented by Morocco since 2007, requires a diplomatic détente between the two neighbors, which Algeria has systematically rejected and which the United States, the European Union and France could help to initiate in one way or another. Why? Because Europe cannot afford to have a potential conflict on its doorstep, and the US has no interest in having Russia as a chess playmate in this important region.
For these reasons, Algeria should be made to understand that its geopolitical playbook needs to be updated. The regional power play it has embarked on by creating a triumvirate with Tunisia and Libya to isolate Morocco is wholly counterproductive, whereas in other parts of the world regional economic integration has been the way forward. Algeria’s efforts to bypass the nearly defunct Arab Maghreb Union by working behind the scenes to cripple that institution are irresponsible and unwise.
Trump’s reelection: a ‘gilded age’ for Moroccan territorial integrity?
Amid the euphoria over President Trump’s reelection among some Moroccans, Mark Twain’s expression comes to mind. And so, could this re-election open a new opportunity for Morocco to claim its historical rights to its Eastern Sahara? With the trove of historical documents that France handed over to Morocco as a goodwill gesture on the occasion of President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Morocco on October 28, and his talks with King Mohammed VI, Morocco will have access to additional historical evidence of its sovereignty over its Eastern Sahara.
Is it time for Morocco to consider engaging legal proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assert its sovereignty over its eastern provinces? In some martial arts, the enemy’s velocity should be returned against him to win a fight. A case could be made in favor of legal action since an ICJ’s ruling in Morocco’s favor could debunk the Algerian misleading argument that Morocco is an “occupier” while Algeria has in fact been occupying some parts of Morocco’s eastern territory for more than a half century.
According to converging historical sources, France offered Morocco seven times to end its support for the Algerian resistance in exchange for the return of its eastern territories. The principled diplomacy of the late King Mohamed V rejected this offer, believing that such an issue should be negotiated between neighbors after Algeria’s independence. However, history has since shown that Algeria was more than unapologetic about its policy of territorial aggrandizement.
Extended hand vs. clinched fist
The conflict between Morocco and Algeria is in some ways reminiscent of the antagonism between Athens and Sparta some 2500 years ago. As Thucydides reported, the Athenians were devoted to democracy, philosophy, and the fine arts, while the Spartans tended toward despotism, war, and conquest.
As this rivalry for regional primacy shows no signs of abating, the fact remains that Morocco’s hybrid strategy, inspired by King Mohammed VI’s subtle approach (diplomatic offensive coupled with military readiness), has proven its relevance in moving steadily toward a peaceful political solution to this artificial conflict. As Sun Tzu put it, “”Victory without fighting is the most advantageous way to win.”
And to return to the analogy of ancient Greece, we know that the lesson to be learned is that, in the end, the Peloponnesian Wars accomplished nothing — for both Athens and Sparta are now Greek cities. A word to the wise, then. Perhaps the related point here is that this state of prolonged and intractable hostility between Algiers and Rabat ultimately benefits neither party. But whether this manifest realization will eventually temper the Algerian establishment to let go of its historical, deeply ingrained obsession with undermining Morocco remains to be seen.
