Washington Fails The Makhzen… Does It Have An Option Other Than Going Back On Normalization?

During her visit to Algeria on Saturday, January 21, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Michele Sison, the U.S. Department of State said that the United States supports the MINRUSO and the United Nations Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, Staffan de Mistura’s efforts in leading the UN political process for Western Sahara.

This statement did not include any reference to the autonomy plan presented by the Moroccan Makhzen regime, nor did it mention the “tweet” of former US President Donald Trump, who spoke of Washington’s recognition of the alleged sovereignty of the Makhzen regime over the occupied Western Sahara lands. How can this be read from a country that Rabat considers its strategic ally, and what remains of the justifications for the Moroccan regime in front of its people, after it had previously marketed the “scandal” of normalization in front of its people, as a necessary evil, as long as it serves the so-called thesis of “territorial unity” of the Makhzen kingdom?

What was issued by the U.S. Department of State in preparation for Michele Sison’s trip to Algeria and then Morocco was not the only statement expressed by the US administration since President Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House. Instead, it was preceded by other statements that pointed in the same direction.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had previously confirmed during his visit to Algeria in March 2022, that there had been no shift in his country’s position on the issue of Western Sahara, and talked about his country’s support for “a political solution to the file within the framework of the United Nations,” Without reference to the autonomy plan, or to the “tweet” of the former president, Donald Trump.

About a year ago, the U.S. Department of State welcomed the visit of the UN Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General to Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to the Maghreb region, in his first step after his appointment to his position last October, and the U.S. Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs spoke in a tweet about the US administration’s support for “de Mistura’s efforts to resume a credible political process that leads to a mutually acceptable and permanent political solution to the Western Sahara conflict,” noting that the Sahrawi party refuses, and has not even paid attention to the autonomy scheme.

The former US president, Donald Trump implicated the Makhzen regime, before leaving the White House, in the quagmire of normalization with the Zionist entity, which led him to take this decision without taking into account the feelings of the Moroccan people who reject normalization and talked about establishing an American consulate in the occupied Western Sahara city of Dakhla, in an attempt by the American administration to delude the Moroccan regime into the seriousness of Trump’s move, and to bring it to the point of no return in the issue of normalization, however, after more than two years, the dream of the Moroccan regime was self-defeating in confronting the Moroccan people’s anger at the “obscenity” of normalization, by establishing this Consulate.

Today, after the Moroccan regime has reached an advanced level of normalization and has become a traitor to the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the Arabs and Muslims, and before them the Moroccan people, its sale of the central cause of the nation has reaped nothing but disappointment and accusations of treason… So does it still have a chance to go back on its decision, or has it lost its honour without getting what it was looking for?