War on Iran: How Algeria and Morocco manoeuvre the fallout
The Maghreb is following the US-Israeli war on Iran and its expansion across the Middle East with particular interest, and for good reason: the geopolitical and economic implications of this major crisis will certainly impact regional balances in North Africa as well.
Behind the bombs raining down on Tehran, the future of Western Sahara, alliances in the Sahel and the rivalry between the two North African heavyweights, Algeria and Morocco, are also being played out.
Tehran has traditionally been allied with Algeria - and to a lesser extent Tunisia - while considering Morocco a hostile actor. And Algiers and Rabat have similarly developed radically different approaches to the latest course of events.
On the one hand, Algeria is attempting a complex diplomatic balancing act, namely, defending its principles without harming its interests, while simultaneously profiting from soaring energy prices as a major oil and gas power.
Morocco, on the other hand, sees the war as a further opportunity to strengthen its alliance with Washington and Israel - as well as the Gulf states - in anticipation of the ongoing negotiations on the fate of Western Sahara, a territory it claims and has occupied 80 percent of for the past 50 years.
Morocco severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2018 amid accusations of arms deliveries to the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi independence movement supported by Algiers.
When the war began in the Middle East on 28 February, Rabat quickly condemned Iranian reprisals against its Gulf neighbours, while remaining silent on the Israeli-US aggression against the Islamic Republic and Lebanon.
And as it did when it joined the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen's Houthis, who are allied with Iran, in 2015, Rabat is fully embracing its choice.
"This position stems from the intersection of Morocco's historical hostility towards Tehran, its strategic cooperation with Washington and the sensitive diplomatic context surrounding the status of Western Sahara," Raouf Farah, an Algerian-Canadian political scientist and a senior analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, told Middle East Eye.
'The current crisis [in the Middle East] could fuel regional geopolitical rivalries'
- Raouf Farah, Algerian-Canadian political scientist
In December 2020, Morocco normalised relations with Israel when the kingdom joined the Abraham Accords at the end of President Donald Trump's first term, in exchange for the US and Israel recognising Morocco's claim to sovereignty over the disputed region of Western Sahara.
The kingdom has since strengthened its ties with the US, becoming a key ally of Washington in Africa, while simultaneously developing wide-ranging cooperation with Israel.
Researcher Nacer Djabi, a former professor of sociology at the University of Algiers II and a researcher at the Algerian Centre for Research in Applied Economics and Development, told MEE that Morocco illustrates the Maghreb's political diversity, noting that the country has in recent years "moved towards a marked rapprochement with Israel, the United States and the Arab Gulf states".
This stance by Rabat, however, runs counter to Moroccan public opinion.
"In this context of escalation, the monarchy is facing mounting domestic pressure, as images of the American-Israeli strikes in Iran and Lebanon circulate widely in the public sphere," Farah said.
According to Djabi, "public opinion in the Maghreb region is very convergent and largely hostile to the Israeli-US war against Iran".
However, the risks of internal unrest are limited in states that leave little room for challenging the established order. The people of the region "do not have the means to express their positions, due to the political stranglehold on the Maghreb street", Djabi said.
Linking Iran to Western Sahara
The Western Sahara issue, the main focus of the kingdom's diplomacy and domestic policy, has recently gained new momentum under pressure from the Trump administration, which is organising back-door talks bringing together the main players, namely Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and Mauritania.
The secret rounds of discussions - the next of which is scheduled, according to MEE sources, in Washington in May - aim to reach a final agreement based on UN Security Council Resolution 2797. Adopted last October, the text marked unprecedented support for Morocco's plan for limited autonomy under its sovereignty for Western Sahara.
Algeria, which supports self-determination for the Sahrawi people, severed diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021 mainly over this issue as well as Morocco's increasingly close ties with Israel. The two neighbouring countries are also vying for the position of the most influential power in the Sahel region.
"The current crisis [in the Middle East] could fuel regional geopolitical rivalries," Farah told MEE.
Moroccan official discourse regularly tends to link the Polisario Front to Iran - an accusation rejected by the Sahrawi Liberation Movement, he explains.
"In a context where negotiations surrounding the future of Western Sahara remain sensitive, this type of narrative could be further exploited by Rabat to push for the classification of the Polisario as a 'terrorist entity', a tactic to delegitimise the Sahrawi movement, especially if the ongoing negotiations fail," Farah added.
For Algeria, the current crisis therefore represents a high-risk diplomatic sequence where offering no opening to Rabat is crucial.
An Algerian diplomatic source who requested anonymity told MEE that, in its dealings with Morocco, Algeria primarily wants to avoid "finding itself isolated during or after this crisis".
'We have our own strategy... being able to play the US game of transactional diplomacy without compromising our principles'
- Algerian diplomatic source
"We have our own strategy: diversify our partners, be less dependent on Western supply chains, and avoid any conflict during the remaining three years of Trump's term," the source told MEE.
It is about "being able to play the US game of transactional diplomacy without compromising our principles", the source added.
This balancing act could prove a delicate gamble for Algiers.
"Algeria will have to be extremely vigilant during the remainder of Trump's term," Abed Charef, an Algerian writer and columnist who previously served as the chief editor of the weekly La Nation, told MEE.
"Morocco will be tempted to provoke a decision under Trump" on the Western Sahara issue, he added.
'Walking a tightrope'
While a military confrontation seems inconceivable at this stage, despite a worrying arms race between the two countries, which are Africa's largest arms importers, diplomatic moves by Rabat seen as hostile by Algiers could complicate the latter's already strained position on the Western Sahara issue.
"The Algerian authorities are in a delicate position," Farah said.
"They seem to be walking a tightrope, trying to maintain a pragmatic stance that avoids directly incurring the wrath of Donald Trump, for instance by condemning Iranian strikes against US bases and positions in the region as well as in some Arab countries.
"At the same time, Algiers is trying not to appear aligned with or influenced by Washington and the Gulf capitals," Farah added.
On 28 February, at the launch of the Israeli-US strikes on Iran, Algiers deplored a "military escalation with unpredictable consequences" and called for "restraint", without however condemning the attack.
Shortly after the first Iranian retaliatory strikes on the Gulf, Algeria expressed its "full and complete solidarity with the brotherly Arab countries that have been targeted by military aggression", without explicitly naming Iran as responsible.
While relations with the United Arab Emirates have deteriorated significantly in recent years, with Algiers repeatedly accusing Abu Dhabi of harmful interference in its internal affairs and the wider region, the North African country wishes to maintain strong ties with the other Gulf states.
"However, this stance is already being interpreted by some as a worrying disconnect between Algeria's traditional rhetoric - based on non-interference and solidarity with just causes - and its current cautious approach," Farah said.
While Algiers played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement of the 1960s and 70s and has a tradition of championing oppressed groups aspiring to self-determination, particularly the Palestinians, its ability to translate this ideological stance into concrete action has declined, analysts say.
However, for Aziz Chahir, a Moroccan political scientist and former associate researcher at the Jacques-Berque Center in Rabat, the war on Iran could paradoxically help Algeria regain a certain role in the resistance movement against Western hegemony.
"A weakened but resilient Iran breathes new life into the Global South, and therefore into Algiers," he told MEE.
Chahir also believes that if Washington chooses to arm the Iranian Kurds against Tehran, according to its strategic interests, the self-determination they aspire to will become "a tool of selective power and lose its legal neutrality and, with it, US credibility as a mediator on Western Sahara".
"The unexpected outcome would be that Washington, in order to redeem its lost neutrality, makes concessions on the Sahara and thus unwittingly perpetuate the status quo it claimed to be transcending."
Economic challenges
On the economic front, the two geopolitical poles of the Maghreb, with their fragile financial systems, are also playing different roles.
Morocco remains highly dependent on energy and maritime flows. The rise in fuel prices at the pump prompted by the war in the Middle East has been immediately felt in the kingdom.
'A weakened but resilient Iran breathes new life into the Global South, and therefore into Algiers'
- Aziz Chahir, Moroccan political scientist
The increase in the price of certain products due to imported inflation caused by freight costs risks making the kingdom's socio-economic situation even more strained, especially during this Ramadan period.
"Morocco has solid foundations and a unique geographical position, but the duration of the conflict in Iran will determine whether 2026 will be a year of slowed growth or a year of profound crisis," the Afrik.com website, a pan-African French-language daily, explains. "The kingdom must now choose between its long-term development ambitions and the immediate social emergency."
On the Algerian side, the shock of imported inflation has not yet materialised, but the risk is latent given the country's dependence on food and industrial imports.
On the other hand, with proven reserves of conventional natural gas estimated at 2.4 trillion cubic metres and 12.2 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Algeria sees the rise in Brent crude prices and the reduction in gas volumes available on the European market as a guarantee of substantial additional revenue.
This will allow the country to improve its foreign exchange reserves in US dollars and partially finance the significant state deficit.
Furthermore, Algeria's position vis-a-vis the EU will be strengthened, which is welcome news for Algiers in the context of the ongoing renegotiation of the free trade agreement with the European bloc.
"Algeria has a decisive geographical advantage: its gas reaches Europe via the TransMed and Medgaz pipelines, [located] directly under the Mediterranean. No naval activity threatens this route," notes business website Maghreb Emergent.
As the war continues to intensify with no imminent end in sight and threatens the global economy, the Maghreb is therefore not simply observing developments as a concerned neighbour but is reading them as a historic moment of potential reshaping of regional balances.
Rabat sees it as a window to consolidate its diplomatic gains on Western Sahara; Algiers, as a phase to be managed with caution to preserve its energy interests, external balance and strategic depth.
The current crisis alone will not determine the future of the Maghreb, but it could accelerate regional shifts.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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