The Moroccan Sahara and the Algerian dilemma
Disrespecting the past, mistrusting the future.

Mohammed Meskaouni

With Staffan de Mistura, the UN Secretary General Personal Envoy’s resignation drawing near and his not so original “partition plan” going to the drain, the lingering question is whether there is a silver lining looming on the horizon. As far as Morocco is concerned, there is: its diplomacy having scored high in terms of international recognition of the relevance of its autonomy initiative. It succeeded painstakingly in shedding light on which party is to be blamed for stalling the solution to settle this artificial and half a century old conflict.
When we delve into Morocco-Algeria relations during the last six decades or so, we are struck by the schizophrenic perception we are left with. If we take, as chronological milestones, their joint struggle against the French colonizer, leading up to the independence of Morocco in 1956 and Algeria’s in 1962, their borders skirmishes in 1963 and their partly exposed military clashes between 1975 and 1991, a case could be made about the relevance of Von Clauzewitz’s trinity model (passion, chance, reason), presented in his seminal book On War, to fathom the current raging dynamics between these two historically close-knitted countries.
For a distant observer, passion (a refined word for jealousy) maybe the key factor to help understanding how an African country such as Morocco, located at the doorstep of Europe, colonized by the two largest European powers of the 16-17 centuries, Spain and Portugal, and later by another major European power in the 20th century, France, is denied its territorial integrity. Denied by who? By a neighboring African country, Algeria which was subjected itself to 132 years of France colonization. To add to this puzzling situation for our observer, Morocco had extended a helping hand to Algeria to gain its independence from France..

The emotional drive of « camaraderie at arms » between the Moroccan Liberation Army and the National Liberation Front of Algeria (ALN) during yesteryears independence struggle, made it possible for the latter to set bases on the Moroccan territory and for money and weapons to be channeled from newly independent Morocco to the Algerian resistance. However, this feeling soon receded putting both in a whirlwind of mistrust over the years.
The same observer will be more confused to learn that former Morocco’s former occupying powers, France and Spain, recognized as recently as last year and this year, the sovereignty of Morocco on its southern provinces while its African and Arab neighbor, Algeria encaged itself in an antagonistic and unconceivable position to this day.
To illustrate the unwarranted nature of this hostility, a surprising Algerian narrative accuses Morocco of having negotiated its independence separately with France leaving as a, quid pro quo, the Algerian Liberation Front to its fate. This accusation cannot be more absurd if we consider the rejection by Sultan Mohamed V of General De Gaulle’s offer to retrocede parts of Moroccan territory in exchange of Morocco’s refraining from all forms of assistance to the ALN.

This good hearted position, from a king who was a true believer in African and Arab unity, was not reciprocated by the Algerian leaders who, after Algeria’s independence in 1962, asserted the principle of the intangibility of borders inherited from the colonization era. Furthermore, Algeria denied the spirit and the letter of the agreement concluded between King Hassan II and the Algerian leader Ferhat Abbas in 1961 to negotiate borders issues between the two countries after Algeria’s independence.
With the unfounded resentment of being forsaken by Morocco still in the air, one year after Algeria recovered its sovereignty, violence erupted in 1963 at the border between the two countries when an Algerian military unit penetrated two Moroccan outposts near Ouarzazate and ordered their occupants (auxiliary police) to evacuate them. When they refused, 15 among them were shot dead. What is shocking is the fact that this incident happened three days after a meeting between Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelaziz Bouteflika and King Hassan II emissary Noureddine Guedira to prepare for a summit between the Moroccan monarch and Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella.
As a reaction, Morocco had no choice but to defend its borders by launching a defensive military action which resulted in the Algerian army’s defeat despite the military assistance it obtained from both Egypt and Cuba. Again, the Algerian propaganda machine was quick to dub Morocco’s reaction an “act of treason “invoking the lack of military readiness of the “nascent Algerian army”.

Algeria psyche is built on a victimization feeling fed by an Orwellian political discourse marinated in a ludicrous blame-game against Morocco to the point of sheer irrationality. The Algerian indictment list against Morocco is mind-boggling to say the least: Morocco was accused of arson when fire broke out in some Algerian forests. Morocco was blamed for holding water resources resulting in drought and loss of biodiversity in Algeria. Morocco was charged with infiltrating a spy ring inside its eastern neighbor’s territory, and since the resumption of the bilateral relations between Morocco and Israel, Morocco is guilty of bringing Tsahal closer to its borders with Algeria.
Is there any likelihood of such “incidents” to re-occur? Maybe. The crux of the matter is that after Algeria’s decision to cut its diplomatic ties with Morocco, the official communication channels to manage any contingency of this kind, especially if it is time sensitive, are, for the time being, inexistent.
As far as the social cost of Algerian enmity against Morocco is concerned, after engaging into a proxy war of attrition against Morocco and spending billions of dollars in backing polisario both militarily and diplomatically, while Moroccan diplomacy is scoring many successes, Algerian authorities are on the hot seat. Many Algerians start to feel that they were “taken for a ride” by their leaders in a covert “war of choice” against Morocco, to use the terminology of Richard Haas (War of Choice, war of necessity).

In the Trinity model’s last component “reason”, Clausewitz posits that leaders resort to rational calculations to achieve strategic objectives. From the points made earlier regarding Algerian leaders’ cognitive behavior, the risk of impulsive actions against Morocco is alarming. According to Maghreb Intelligence, the Algerian Chief of staff ordered early this month military deployment along the borders with Morocco. Besides, the power struggle inside the Algerian military establishment is a key indicator that things might “get out of hand” sooner or later. The Moroccan Sahara issue, instigated by Algeria and Libya during the heyday of the cold war and East-west confrontation, with enormous geopolitical implications for the US and Europe, is heading towards closure. It has been costly to the Algerian regime both economically and diplomatically as polisario has been nurtured, in vitro, at the expense of the Algerian taxpayer for so many years. The social peace, in this resources-endowed country, yet with a sizable number of its population living in sub-standard conditions, is uncertain. It is only attributable to the fact that Algerians still reminisce the exactions perpetrated by the jihadists and the military during the bloody civil war and they are not ready for a remake. How long this feeling can still hold is a matter of anybody’s guess and for the future to tell.