Algeria Isolates Morocco’s Makhzen Regime And Besieges It In Its Camp

At a time when the Kingdom of Morocco has become an isolated island in a turbulent ocean, Algeria has become a shrine for diplomats from different parts of the world. This is evidenced by the recent reciprocal visits between Algeria and major countries such as the United States of America, France and Italy, in a direction that reveals an effective pragmatism in Algerian diplomacy, based on strengthening and diversifying partnerships, sensing the impact of the country’s higher interests and rightly defending them.
Last week, Algeria received the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, and the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, Michel Sison, and the Chief of Staff of the People’s National Army, Army General Said Chanegriha, landed in France on an unprecedented visit in sixteen years. The Makhzen regime’s media turned all the lights and lenses on him and followed him with analyses and readings that warned against this rapprochement, which they considered to be against the interests of their country.
The visit of the Italian official culminated in the consolidation of the historic economic and energy cooperation between the two friendly countries, and the visit of the Algerian army chief of staff to France revived Algerian-French relations in new contexts, in a way that serves the needs of both countries and their common interests.
As for the American official, she dealt a blow to the Moroccan Makhzen regime, not only by completely ignoring the tweet of the former US President Donald Trump, but rather by jumping on the “autonomy plan” and its affirmation of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination, by talking about refusing to participate in any project, as the Sahrawi people reject all the nefarious proposals and perfidious manoeuvres launched by the Moroccan regime.
All this is happening at a time when the Moroccan Makhzen regime is experiencing unprecedented international and regional isolation.
The European doors are closed to the Moroccan officials and they have nothing left but the door of Spain, where the head of the government of that country, Pedro Sanchez, who has less than a year left in office, is standing. As for France, it has become a nightmare for the beleaguered Moroccan regime, and it sees the Algerian-French rapprochement taking its toll and strengthening, reaching levels that make the “Makhzen” sleepless.
Even in its Maghreb environment, the Makhzen regime is isolated in a way it has not been since independence. Its eastern borders with Algeria are closed by land, sea and air, and its southern borders with Western Sahara have been on fire for more than four decades.
Mauritania’s position, which recognises the Republic of Western Sahara, continues to put pressure on its relations with Rabat, while Tunisia has joined the countries that support the right of the Sahrawi people to defend their legitimate rights, which led to a diplomatic rupture between it and the Moroccan regime following the summoning back home of the two countries’ ambassadors last summer.
Despite the rhetoric of courtship that the Makhzen regime’s officials have always shown towards the former colony, ie. France, , they have not been able to build bridges with their former “godfather”, whom they have lost to “juvenile diplomacy” that has deprived the western neighbor of what is left of its credibility, by proving its involvement in corruption and bribery scandals involving MEPs and leading to the imprisonment of some of them, and by daring to hack the phones of senior officials in the old continent, led by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had decided to take revenge in his own way on the Makhzen regime for the “Pegasus” espionage scandal.
The major shock from which the Moroccan regime is still recovering is that its traditional partner, France, has suddenly turned in favor of Algeria, as France considered Morocco to be its “unloved mistress”, as the former French ambassador to the United States of America, François Delattre, once described the latest diplomatic crisis between Rabat and Paris.