Algeria’s decision this week to cut diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates has once again highlighted Algiers’ deepening tilt toward Iran and its regional proxies, including Hezbollah, at the expense of broader Arab consensus.
Algeria cut ties with Abu Dhabi over vaguely defined “provocative or hostile” actions in a move that fits a familiar pattern.
When faced with differences with Gulf states that prioritize stability and pragmatic diplomacy, Algiers leans further into its longstanding ideological affinity with Tehran.
That affinity was on clear display just days earlier. On August 31, newly arrived Iranian Ambassador Nasser Kanaani Jafi presented his credentials to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. In remarks afterward, the ambassador stressed the strategic closeness between the two countries.
“Iran and Algeria are two important nations that bear shared responsibilities,” Kanaani Jafi said. He noted that both “hold significant influence on both the regional and international arenas” and that their governments “share responsibilities towards the Islamic world, including contributing to the achievement of peace, stability, and security within it,” particularly amid “the sensitive and complex circumstances the Islamic world is currently navigating.”
He also pointed to the “convergence of views between the two countries on numerous regional and international political issues.”
Algeria and Iran have long found common ground in attacking sovereign decisions by countries that normalized with Israel.
While Iran uses proxies such as Hezbollah and the Houthis to unsettle Gulf states, Israel Syria and Lebanon, Algeria has followed a similar playbook hoping to use the Polisario to constrain Morocco’s influence or other terrorist groups in the Sahel to put pressure on its southern neighbors.
While framing their foreign policies through anti-Western “resistance” narratives, Algeria and Iran play on the same chord.
While most Arab capitals have worked to contain Iranian influence and the destabilizing role of groups such as Hezbollah, Algeria has consistently maintained warmer relations with Tehran and provided diplomatic and narrative cover for actors aligned with the so-called Axis of Resistance.
Reports over the years have pointed to ideological and operational overlaps involving Polisario elements and Iranian-backed networks, including Hezbollah.
By choosing confrontation with the UAE, a key Gulf and African player, Algeria further distances itself from the mainstream Arab approach of economic diversification, energy cooperation, and regional de-escalation.
