Clinton Supports Morocco’s Sahara Autonomy Plan
Within the bounds of her smart and preventive diplomacy, US Secretary of State has spared no effort during her historic visit to bridge the gap between Algeria and Morocco that both constitute the core, veritable dynamos and geostrategic heavyweights of the Maghreb, concludes Bouzekri Chakroune.
Middle East Online
After taking part in the International Conference on Somalia in London on February 23 and the international conference of “Friends of Syria” in Tunis on last Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her valedictory visit to the Maghreb States: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in the aim of backing the efforts of revival of the Arab Maghreb Union process and economic integration among the three countries and prove America’s steadfast support for the political, social, economic and judiciary reforms undertaken in the Maghreb bloc.
At this level, constant contacts and meetings among Maghreb Foreign Ministers have been made in Rabat, Algiers, Rome and Tunis to pave the way for the historic revival of the Arab Maghreb Union whose formal foundation saw the day on 17th February 1989.
The support of the Maghreb project had been already provided during the Clinton and the Bush Administrations as the Eizenstat Initiative was devised to enhance the Maghreb’s economic integration and free trade among its members. In this respect, consecutive Under-Secretaries of State, like Joseph Sisco, Robert Pelletreau, Strob Talbott, Richard Armitage, William Burns, Jeffrey Feltman and Raymond Maxwell, all went in the common direction of seeing the potentially rich region as a haven of stability and security.
Within the bounds of her smart and preventive diplomacy, Secretary Clinton has spared no effort during her historic visit to bridge the gap between Algeria and Morocco that both constitute the core, veritable dynamos and geostrategic heavyweights of the Maghreb.
Her diplomatic dinner with Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika like her predecessor Condoleezza Rice aimed to create a balance of power between the Bear that is Algeria and the sender tiger that is Morocco. Now the lion’s den between both countries seems to be vanishing under the growing pressure of both the United States and the EU who have no interest of seeing the Maghreb region Balkanized and a new arms race backyard.
American administrations from Nixon to Obama understand well the strategically sensitive standing of Morocco in the Maghreb security architecture. For this strong reason, both Morocco and the US have completely converged on the necessity of shaping and nursing a strategic partnership.
After his coronation, monarch Mohamed VI made a historic visit on June 2000 to the US and met with former US President Bill Clinton. the relationship has been growing economically and more obviously at the military level once Morocco was granted the privileged status of a non NATO ally in 2004 during the Bush Administration although the kingdom seems to be at loggerheads with US foreign policy respecting crucial issues like the Palestinian cause and the issue of Eastern Jerusalem that both elite, grassroots ,top brass and government of the Westernmost kingdom ardently advocates after the politically divisive dossier of Western Sahara.
Pragmatically speaking, the American perception has improved even after 9/11 to compensate hopefully the big loss and sort out the major mess both in the Middle East and Central Asia (Afghanistan) – two severely self-destructive areas known as the Bermuda Triangle for US military strategy beside the new challenge of Iran that is resolutely going nuclear and defiantly ballistic to the UN and international community and fanatically flexing its military muscles in the Mediterranean just one week ago.
Anyway, America is seeking smart and sustainable solutions for durable disputes in the Maghreb: After James Baker’s failed good offices for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to broker a peace plan during the Bush Administration and Christopher Ross was hired as another extraordinary envoy who is striving since his nomination on January 2009 to make of the reluctant negotiators abiding adherents to the negotiating table. At this point both Morocco and the US agreed on the politically viable autonomy Sahara plan that constitutes the backbone of talks in Manhasset between Morocco and the Polisario who has remained a protected pawn of Algeria although counterterrorism experts and analysts managed to identify the catastrophic connections between the Polisario and terrorist groups of Al Qaeda both in the Maghreb and the Sahel that become simultaneously a fertile breeding and recruiting ground for new converts.
Clinton raised bluntly the issue with leaders both in Algiers and Rabat so that both countries could coordinate efficiently and resourcefully and set up the necessary destructive device against the creeping phenomenon.
A big breakthrough has been reached once Saadine El Othmani was vouchsafed the portfolio of Moroccan diplomacy after November elections that brought the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PDJ) to power. The incumbent FM has expanded all his diplomatic resources since his nomination to achieve a new group of dynamics within the Maghreb. He met respectively and consecutively with his Algerian counterpart Mourad Medelci in Algiers, Tunisian FM Rafik Abdessalam in Rabat, Mauritanian FM Mohamed Saleck Ould Lémine in Nouakchott and Libyan counterpart Ashour Bin Khayalin in Rabat besides his meetings with concerned Maghreb leaders and all together in Marrakech from which they have all vowed to revive and rework the Arab Maghreb Union, its frozen mechanisms and institutions on February 17 celebrating the unavailing union that has remained merely theoretical and recorded metaphorically in history textbooks until our days.
The space of geopolitical complementarity and economic integration was even expanding to endorse the strategic partnership between the Maghreb states and their matches in the Northern Mediterranean: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Malta within the smart symphony of 5+5 dialogue. Moreover Mrs Clinton’s diplomacy is superbly Samaritan to the region as it is working successfully to salvage the Maghreb from the vicious circle of strained relations that have prevailed since the early sixties between king Hassan II and Algeria’s disappeared president Houari Boumedienne who could not sink his differences and displayed expansionist drives against a kingdom that has not yet achieved its full territorial integrity.
Undoubtedly, Morocco has become an indispensable ally for the US. Its presidency of the UN Security Council enables it to play a leading role in the defence and championship of worthy causes in Africa, the Arab World and worldwide. US Secretary Clinton cannot eschew praising the constitutional and political reforms in Morocco in particular and the Maghreb in general
In an interview with Morocco’s second TV channel 2M Information director, Samira Sitail, the former first lady Clinton tried to cast light on Moroccan and Maghreb new millennium after achieving social revolution and political change. But she could realize the duplicity of transcontinental terrorism that terribly transformed and tormented the titanic superpower and eroded its sublime standing in the world. Sorrowfully, Uncle Sam would not be able to cope with unforeseen jeopardies without its allegiant Allies’ embrace of Pax Americana, the doctrine of dutifulness.
For it, Mrs Clinton took the trouble to fly on Air Force One to inaugurate the new premises of a US hyper-embassy in Rabat to prove that America’s triumph will remain established and its patriotic pride unshakeable whatever the vagaries and vicissitudes occurring in international relations.
Bouzekri Chakroune
