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Join on Telegram Washington – For pro-Polisario commentators and lobbyists still hoping that the Biden administration will at some point repudiate the US’ pro-Morocco policy on the Western Sahara dispute, the US Consolidated Appropriations Bill signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 15 is the latest indication that the recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara is now official US policy.
Ever since President Joe Biden came to office, Algerian-paid Lobbyists and many pro-Polisario pundits have been hoping to see the new administration reverse its predecessor’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. In fact, many of the most vociferous pro-Polisario voices in the US were quick to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s support for Morocco’s territorial integrity.
As they saw it, Trump’s siding with Morocco in its decade-long diplomatic fight against Algerian-backed separatism was at best a unilateral and pointless move, and at worst a reckless and unconscionable violation of international law and traditional US foreign policy.
Driven by the self-righteous fury that has become the marker of pro-Polisario advocacy, some of them called on the Biden administration to disavow the December 10 proclamation to restore what they described as US neutrality. In their truncated and self-serving telling of the Western Sahara story — and history — they brazenly argued that the now disqualified referendum of self-determination remains the general international consensus on how to end the Sahara conflict.
By shrewdly and misleadingly invoking separatist talking points like “self-determination,” “oppression,” and “occupation,” they hoped to galvanize the new American administration into embracing what they presented as the US’ commitment to the downtrodden and wretched of the world. As anyone familiar with Polisario’s shock strategy would know, this was victimology at its best.
Judging from Biden’s lukewarm but non-insignificant embrace of his predecessor’s Western Sahara policy, and the US Congress’ increasingly clear support for Morocco, however, it is safe to say that the past two years have been a clear dismissal of Algerian-paid lobbyists’ pro-Polisario propaganda.
Language matters
To be sure, the Biden administration’s Western Sahara juggling act is not exactly the ringing support that many in Rabat expected. Yet, the Appropriations Bill has provided further cogent evidence that calculated hesitation and temporary diplomatic sensitivity should not be confused with utter repudiation or unmistakable rejection.
For one thing, the document has shown that, rather than the product of a whimsical president, the US’ embrace of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the best way out of the Sahara conflict was the culmination of decades-long US support for Morocco’s efforts to preserve its territorial integrity.
To put things into perspective: The “Morocco” subheading of the new bill reads that “Funds appropriated under titles III and IV of this Act shall be made available for assistance for Morocco.” It is thus the first US bill to refer to Morocco without any mention of “Western Sahara.” And because language carries an important weight in political documents, the main takeaway from the “Morocco” section of this new US spending bill is that the US administration now views “Western Sahara” as unambiguously Moroccan.
In all previous US bills relating to US assistance to Morocco, US lawmakers made sure to systematically imply that because the final status of Western Sahara was still “pending,” it was not to be considered under Morocco’s sovereignty.
And so, even as most US appropriations put no major hurdles in Morocco’s way to use the funds allocated to it in Western Sahara, there was always a thin nuance by means of which US lawmakers sought to ensure that the allocation of these funds to Western Sahara was not tantamount to explicitly recognizing Morocco’s full sovereignty over the territory.
For example, all US Appropriation Bills adopted between 2014 and 2021 made funds allocated to Morocco available for use in Western Sahara. But the use of these funds was subject to certain restrictions and was contingent on the Department of State notifying congress within three months of the appropriation bill and after consulting with the Appropriations Committee on the use of such funds in Western Sahara.
For all Congress’ nuance and caution when it came to endorsing the use of those funds in “Western Sahara,” Morocco viewed US lawmakers’ guarded permission as tacit support for its sovereignty over the region.
Algeria’s short-lived victories
But slightly complicating the story for Morocco is that Algeria was keen to take advantage of Congress’ hesitations. The country recruited a lobbying firm, Foley Hoag, to lobby certain influential members of Congress to sabotage Morocco’s efforts to resolve the dispute. The Senate was Algerian lobbyist’s most preferred turf for much of the past two decades. Foley Hoag relied on the sympathy of two extremely influential senators — James Inhofe and Patrick Leahy — to relay Algeria’s concerns to the other members of the Senate, they short-lived.
In 2018, for example, Inhofe and Leahy succeeded in persuading the Senate to adopt an appropriations bill that decoupled Morocco from Western Sahara. This version of the bill did not, however, make it to the final version adopted in the House. As a result, the consolidated bill adopted by both chambers of Congress — and later on signed into law by the Trump administration — included Morocco and its Western Sahara region under the same subheading.
Long before the 2022 Appropriation Bill’s decidedly pro-Morocco language, the Biden’s administration had given many signs of its commitment to Morocco’s Western Sahara position.
Morocco’s momentum
The most important such signals were the adoption by the US State Department and other US government-affiliated institutions of undivided maps of Morocco, and the inclusion of Western Sahara in the “Morocco” section of the State Department’s latest country report on Human right and religious freedoms. As such, the past months have made it increasingly clear that Algeria and its lobbyist’s pro-Polisario propaganda will continue to fall on deaf ears given the US’ commitment to upholding its Western Sahara policy.
The deafening silence of Algerian media following President Biden’s signing of the 2022 Appropriations Bill this week speaks volumes. Frustrated and dismayed, Algeria is now realizing that the novelty of the new bill in comparison to the previous ones is that it contains absolutely no ambiguity as to US support for Morocco’s territorial integrity.
The fact that the US bill completely omits the term “Western Sahara” and refers instead to Morocco as a single, indivisible territory is a huge diplomatic setback for Algeria and signals the dwindling credibility and effectiveness of its lobbying efforts in Washington. By underlining US support for Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the only legitimate basis of any solution to the decades-long conflict, the text of the 2022 Appropriation Bill shows the progress Morocco has made over the past 15 years to secure support for its territorial integrity despite Algerian attempts to undermine its efforts in Washington.
The 2008 Appropriation bill did not, for instance, make funds allocated to Morocco available for use in Western Sahara. Rather, it provided $3.65 million of military assistance to Morocco, and made an additional $1 million available for use in Western Sahara.
Most importantly, the use of the funds allocated to “Western Sahara” was contingent on Morocco making “progress on human rights.” If the Moroccan wished to use US funds in Western Sahara, the bill stressed, it had to allow “all persons to advocate freely their views regarding the status and future of the Western Sahara through the exercise of their rights to peaceful expression, association and assembly.”
Four years later, the 2012 Appropriations bill placed the same restrictions on the use of funds allocated to Morocco. As well as making a distinction between Morocco and Western Sahara, the bill involved the same “human rights progress” conditions as in 2008. By contrast, the 2022 Appropriations Bill has created a momentous precedent for the long-running pro-Morocco momentum on the Sahara question.
By omitting the term “Western Sahara” and referring to Morocco as a single nation, the 2022 US Appropriations Bill signals a new era in US foreign policy and provides Congress with the legal clarity it needs to act confidently and decisively in support of Moroccan territorial integrity, however hard Algeria tries to lobby against it.
But because the Algerian establishment sees Western Sahara as the epitome of its zero-sum competition against Morocco for hegemony over the Maghreb, the latest, pro-Moroccan developments are sure to push Algeria to redouble its lobbying efforts to undo the diplomatic progress Morocco has achieved in Washington in recent years.
However, given the current pro-Rabat sentiment in Washington, and the announced retirement of Senators Leahy and Inhofe, anyone betting on Algeria’s ability to sway the Washington political establishment in its favor on the Sahara question will be betting on a losing horse.
And yet, as I have argued elsewhere, however, this new era of unprecedented pro-Morocco momentum should not be an excuse for Moroccan officials to grow complacent and rest on their laurels.
Samir Bennis is the co-founder of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.
