Two days after the US arrested and flew Venezuelan autocrat Nicolas Maduro to New York, Algeria went mute as stone, unable to condemn or express solidarity with its ally.
Maduro had met Tebboune in Algiers in 2022 and vowed to foster their alliance, coordinate in oil markets and open a direct air route.
The two leaders indulged in cold-war era rhetoric voicing similar positions on the Palestinian issue and the Polisario separatist agenda.
As Maduro braces for indictment in a US court, talkative Tebboune suddenly discovers the virtues of silence.
Silence is of virtue for Tebboune and the men in uniform pulling the strings of the regime because the spectacle in Caracas is a mirror Algeria cannot bear to look into.
Maduro’s fate shows that hollow slogans do not stop US helicopters. Algeria discovered through its allies that the myths of “invincible armies” have evaporated in a single afternoon.
