What was whispered in the padded enclosures of international forums has today become a military reality assumed by the Iranians. The Tehran regime sells drones to Algeria for the Polisario.
Strange coincidence, the Iranian admission came at the same time as the recognition of supplying drones to Russia to help it in its war against Ukraine, and this, after numerous denials. An uninhibited Iranian strategy in its communication, a way of showing off its strengths and its capacity for harm.
That Iran has now become an important player in the Moroccan Sahara conflict is no longer in doubt. For a long time, the assertions in this direction of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita and the Ambassador, Omar Hilal, aroused many interrogative and suspicious reactions.
Today, the situation has changed. Through the Algerian regime, Iran is establishing a military foothold in North Africa, getting involved in a conflict, and arming the Polisario, which it considers to serve its strategic interests.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is adding to its dissuasive arc intended to put it in a better negotiating position, the Sahara affair. It was already handling four major crises which allowed it to have the attention of the international community: The crisis in Yemen where it arms the Houthi movement, the crisis in Lebanon and Syria where it uses the Hezbollah card to make rain and the good weather in the land of cedars and that of the Syrian regime of Bashar El Assad, not to mention Iraq where nothing can happen without Iranian goodwill.
The arming of the Polisario by Iran through the Algerian regime is not necessarily a good deal for the separatists. If it shows the Iranian will to provoke a war and to sow chaos in the region, this assumed intervention is subject to many questions and interpretations. The possible use of these drones by the Polisario against Morocco is already perceived as an Algerian declaration of war which will certainly not remain without reaction from the Moroccan army for years in a defensive situation.
Especially since the Algerian regime’s assumed connections with Iran are likely to accentuate the isolation of Algiers. Americans and Europeans are already questioning his military closeness to Vladimir Putin at war with Europe and are preparing to sanction his tendency to fuel his war machine. After the American senators, European deputies try to wear the iron in the scar.
Today, Iran, which is involved in a conflict at the gates of Europe, is likely to rewrite all the strategic equations. Faced with Europe, Algiers cannot justify its stubbornness in joining forces with Vladimir Putin to help him win his showdown against the Europeans and the Americans. And in the face of Arab countries, Algiers cannot justify its alliance with their number one enemy, Iran, to undermine the stability and security of their ally, Morocco.
A possible use of these drones by the Polisario against Morocco is not only a declaration of war but also an important new situation in the tendency to qualify the Polisario as being a terrorist movement at the service of the Algerian and Iranian agendas which want to destabilize Africa of the North and to add to the Libyan and Sahelian chaos another chaos on the Algerian-Moroccan border.
The international community, led by Europe, will have no hesitation in putting the Polisario on the list of terrorist organizations, such as Daesh, Al Qaeda or the Lebanese Hezbollah. This step will automatically transform the Algerian regime into a sponsor of terrorism in the world, as Sudan and Afghanistan were yesterday and as Iran is today.
Slowly but surely, the Algerian regime is tying the hangman’s noose around its neck, weaving its own isolation. Its morbid fascination for Russia, its political alliance against all logic with Iran today make Algeria a sleepwalking country that walks like a “Cliffhanger”, with the risk of a fall as brutal as unexpected.
The differences of appreciation within it around these strategic questions undoubtedly explain the creaking of devices whose whistles can be heard from afar. An antagonism between those who want to push Algeria into a pyromaniac and suicidal approach and those, whose word is still rare and inaudible, who want to save Algeria from this self-destructive destiny.
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