Sahara autonomy, a facet of Morocco’s strategic magnanimity and a face-saving for Algiers

Morocco has once again shown strategic magnanimity in inviting Algeria for dialogue on all pending issues, while putting forward an autonomy plan that offers Algiers a face-saving on the Sahara issue.

Algeria has for over five-decades been the main instigator of separatism in the Sahara territory, hosting, arming and backing diplomatically the Polisario militias.

King Mohammed VI’s call on the Throne Day was a reaffirmation of Morocco’s readiness to open a new page with Algeria, conducive to Maghreb integration, peace and brotherliness between the Moroccan and Algerian peoples.

The autonomy plan is “a solution with neither winner nor loser; a face-saving solution for all parties,” the Royal speech made it clear.

Algerian regime’s outlets and commentators rejected or at best downplayed the call for reconciliation as usual.

TSA, a once credible media that has been reduced to a mouthpiece of the military regime, went as far as saying that the Royal overture towards Algeria was in expectation of a change in the stance of the US on the conflict, amid a visit to Algiers by Massad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the US President on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs.

Four days later, Trump himself discredited all Algerian pro-regime propagandists and media outlets, when he reaffirmed in a clear-cut unambiguous language that Washington recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara and considers the autonomy plan as the only solution to the conflict.

In denial, Algerian regime proponents and their Polisario puppets find it hard to believe that this is just a reaffirmation of a stand expressed by the US administration in April and first announced in 2020 by Trump.

The autonomy plan is a face save. The more Algeria rejects it, the more it puts itself in a position of total defeat.

Morocco is practicing what military strategists call “graceful victory” offering its opponent-through the autonomy proposal- a “golden bridge to retreat across.”

Morocco has won the war on the ground and is now winning diplomatically with three permanent members of the Security Council on its side, along with most of Africa, the Arab World, while key EU nations back the autonomy plan as the most serious proposal to end the conflict.

Meanwhile, Algeria’s denial of the growing momentum in favor of Morocco’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will lead it to more diplomatic isolation, stagnation, and missed opportunities.