Why Saudi-Iran Normalization Will Not Affect Morocco-Iran Relations

The recent, China-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran has opened an interesting debate about appeasement and normalization in the bilateral relations between the two long-lasting Middle East rivals, and this could produce a cascade-like effect on the whole region. In fact, Egypt and the UAE hailed the resumption of relations between Riyadh and Tehran. And because this utterly unexpected development was made possible with the front-bench involvement of Chinese and Russian diplomats, the geopolitical emerging geopolitical landscape in the Gulf and middle east region can be heavily impacted.

In such a context, the question of the plausible implications of such developments on the Morocco-Iran bilateral relations seems to gain a genuine interest. Since the rupture of Rabat-Tehran diplomatic relations in 2018, when Morocco accused Iran of giving military and logistical support to the separatist Polisario Front, the Iranian regime has continued to undermine Moroccan territorial integrity by sending the Polisario Front anti-aircraft missiles and drones through Hezbollah and with the help of Algeria, according to the Director of the Moroccan Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations.

This aggressive Iranian behavior against an existential issue for Morocco confirms the foreign policy of meddling the regime of Mollahs has adopted in the Maghreb since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that upended the nature, practice, and ideological inclination of Iran’s political regime.

Algeria, the foremost foreign sponsor of the Polisario Front, is known to have played the crucial role of host to and facilitator of Iranian interference in the Moroccan Western Sahara dispute. More recently, Iran has appeared to increasingly regard Mauritania as a priority zone for its influence schemes in the Sahelo-Saharan region.

In this sense, the visit of Iranian Foreign Minister to Nouakchott in February this year revealed the Iranian regime’s bet on Mauritania in its strategy of gaining footprint in the Sahel. Moreover, the revelations about a network of money laundering and funds transfers to the Polisario Front involving Hezbollah, Iran, and Algeria are alarming signs of how the separatist front’s well-reported links to terrorism and other forms of transnational criminal activities are threatening the whole peace and stability in the region.

Obviously, Morocco as a regional power is directly targeted and threatened in its territorial integrity by this alliance composed of two states (Iran and Algeria) and two proxy entities (Hezbollah and Polisario). As far as Mauritania is concerned, pushing further its relationship with Iran would arouse the anger of Morocco, which regards as hostile and intolerable any direct or tacit support for or legitimation of Iran’s agenda in the Sahel.

From this perspective, asking if the Saudi-Iran diplomatic reconciliation would allow for a same development in Morocco-Iran relations is a wrong question for one fundamental reason: Moroccan neighbors, Algeria and more recently Mauritania, are giving the fertile ground to Iran’s interference in a region that is highly sensitive for the vital interests of Morocco.

Iran cannot successfully act on its expansionist agenda in the Sahel region without blessing fromAlgeria, a neighbor who has for decades viewed the weakening of Morocco as its main foreign policy concern, but also from Mauritania, whose government recognizes the separatist entity and regularly welcomes its leaders for official visits. In this regard, any possible normalization of relations between Morocco and Iran will need to be rooted in a real Iranian intent to stop its policy of meddling in the Maghreb, especially its apparent determination to undermine Morocco’s sovereignty over the Moroccan Western Sahara region.

Now, the adhesion of Morocco to the Abraham Accords and its strategy of partner diversification, including strategic dialogue with Russia and enhanced cooperation with China, India and Brazil have enabled the North African kingdom to have more diplomatic leverage when it comes to defending its vital interests.

In order to deter hostile schemes from foreign powers,including Teheran’s strategy in the Maghreb and the Sahara, Morocco also relies on a very deeply rooted national identity and the strength of a nationwide and profound unanimity regarding the national cause of recovering the kingdom’s southern provinces.

On the diplomatic field, the Saudi-Iran deal may reduce or slow down Iranian belligerence towards Morocco, but such an outcome cannot be reached without the brokerage of a great power for the main reason that Tehran’s current hostility towards Rabat is crossing red lines and reaching a point of no return for Morocco.

At the moment, however, the priority for Morocco seems to be the management of more regional, immediate crises — including the recent spiral of escalations and accusations from Algeria, its essential but at times halting relations with the EU, the changing nature of its once “strategic” but now rocky relationship with France, as well as the increasingly overwhelming threats of terrorism in the Sahel and the flows of irregular migration from sub-Saharan Africa.

Admittedly, whether the recently brokered Saudi-Iran deal can or will have a stabilizing effect in the Middle East or extend the bilateral relations of the two long-standing regional rivals, will heavily depend on how the United states and Israel will react to the Saudi-Iranian detente.

If they consider that the deal opens an opportunity for peace and stability in the region, then a Saudi-Israel normalization would be a possibility in the future as long as the US concedes serious guarantees to Saudi Arabia. But should the American and Israeli government’s reaction rather be aimed at undermining the Saudi-Iran deal, it will certainly trigger a real risk of fueling more tensions between China and the United States in the Middle East.

At the same time, should the saudi-Iran normalization get stronger and more consolidated in the two forthcoming months, the United States of America will put more pressure on Israel to enable the White House to broker a Saudi-Israeli deal in the continuity of the Abraham Accords.

All the scenarios hold little incidence on the Morocco-Iran relations since the most suitable time for bilateral reconciliation between the two countries is not linked to external agendas. Moreover, the ball of any such resumption of diplomatic relations between Rabat and Tehran is in the Iranian court since Rabat is known to have repeatedly communicated to the Iranian government factual evidence of its meddling in the Sahara dispute before finally deciding to cut off all diplomatic ties.

From this perspective, the analytical grid of Morocco-Iran relations has predominantly internal dimensions which are embodied in Iranian policy of meddling and in Morocco’s diplomacy of countering any hostile actions seeking to undermine the kingdom’s territorial integrity.

Undoubtedly, China’s flexing of its diplomatic muscles in the Middle East is of paramount significance to the Asian giant’s campaign to ditch the US-dominated world order and replace it with a multipolar international system that would give countries in the Global South more strategic autonomy in the conduct of their foreign policies. Global South countries like Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and South Africa, among others, are seemingly aware of the windows of opportunity that have been opened by the economic and geopolitical changes currently unfolding in the international system.

The Saudi-Iranian normalization is one stunning example of the shifts permitted by such changes. But the analogy with Morocco-Iran relations is irrelevant, even if the current state of Iran-Morocco relations and the hitherto long-standing Tehran-Riyadh hostility had the same root cause: Iran’s tendency to use proxy armed groups to assert its influence or flaunt its destructive potential in many parts of the MENA region. Nonetheless, the similarity is limited to this point and cannot serve as a pattern to predict Morocco-Iran relations in the foreseen future.