Donald Trump is expected to leave the US presidency on January 20.
In the weeks after the November election, when it became clear that he had lost, Trump has pushed through a range of executive orders which included pardons for some convicted criminals, and there has been a fast-tracking of executions for some prisoners on death row.
Some of the decisions Trump is making in these end times of his presidency will, no doubt, have long-term implications after he has left office. One of the things that he has done was to “normalise” relations between Israel and selected Arab states — in exchange for increased sales of military hardware from US companies.Regardless of anyone’s views on the state of Israel — and anyway, only a single narrative has been legitimised — Trump’s “latest peace deal” was establishing “normal relations” between Israel and Morocco this month. As with most of Trump’s “deals”, however, the quid pro quo in this case has dire consequences.
In return for Morocco “normalising” diplomatic relations with Israel, Washington will effectively recognise Rabat’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
“This quid pro quo arrangement,” the Financial Times explained on December 11, has “all the hallmarks of Mr Trump’s leadership style: an attempt to gratify his ego, the love for a deal whatever the long-term costs and an indifference to the damage the approach causes … [and] is just the latest in a string of agreements with Arab countries that have improved relations with Israel at the behest of the US government. All have been transactional: Sudan was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, while the Trump administration gave the United Arab Emirates the green light to buy advanced US-made F-35 fighter jets.”
For Trump, these moves may be “just business”, but his quid pro quo has raised the stakes in the conflict with Western Sahara’s Polisario Front, which wants independence from Morocco and the withdrawal of troops along the 2,700km fortified wall that effectively separates the two countries. Backed by Algeria, the Polisario Front has been at the forefront of a guerrilla war against Moroccan troops along the border between the two territories.
Morocco’s presence along the Western Saharan border, its very hold on the fledgling African state, may be likened to the way Pretoria held on to the old South West Africa, which required a near permanent military presence of South African troops.
Morocco has claimed Western Sahara, a territory whose status has been disputed since Spain, the former colonial power, withdrew in 1975. This Moroccan claim is being disputed by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which controls about 25% of Western Sahara and wants full independence for the region — much like Swapo wanted independence for Namibia. The UN has been noncommittal on the dispute and passed a resolution in 1991 which proposed a ceasefire and for the status of Western Sahara to be decided by a referendum.
Trump’s quid pro quo and appeasement (mainly to sell more military hardware in North Africa and the Middle East) effectively destroyed whatever international consensus there was on the region’s status. Western Sahara remains “disputed territory” and the EU has confirmed that it would continue to treat the territory as disputed. In doing so, Washington, the UN and EU will embolden the Moroccan regime, which has been accused of human rights violations in the territory. Riccardo Fabiani, the North African director of the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organisation, said: “I think we can safely say that this move makes the resolution of the current bout of violence much harder … This will also make Sahrawi youths more angry, mobilised and committed to resolving the conflict through force.”
And so, much like George W Bush and Barack Obama left the deadly fallout of Washington’s wars against the Iraqis, the Afghan people and Libya when they left office, Trump leaves behind increased tension and potentially worse conflict in north and northwest Africa. Washington has already made Libya (effectively) ungovernable. If that seems like a harsh left-wing conspiracy theory, this was how The American Conservative (a right-wing institution), described Washington’s role in Libya, in an article republished in January 2020 by the conservative Cato Foundation under the headline “The Obama Administration Wrecked Libya for a Generation”.
Trump’s quid pro quo and appeasement (mainly to sell more military hardware in North Africa and the Middle East) effectively destroyed whatever international consensus there was on the region’s status
“Libya’s ongoing destruction belongs to Hillary Clinton more than anyone else. It was she who pushed president Barack Obama to launch his splendid little war, backing the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in the name of protecting Libya’s civilians. When later asked about Gaddafi’s death, she cackled and exclaimed: ‘We came, we saw, he died.’”
Alas, his was not the last death in that conflict, which has flared anew, turning Libya into a real-life Game of Thrones. An artificial country already suffering from deep regional divisions, Libya has been further torn apart by political and religious differences.
As we count the days to Trump’s departure from the US presidency, there is a slight fear and trembling about conflict in North Africa. Libya is already in chaos, Morocco appears to have been emboldened in its hold over Western Sahara. Rabat has a terrible human rights record and continues to reject a referendum on independence for Western Sahara. The Polisario Front and SADR will, surely, ramp up their pressure on Morocco.
“We are now in a state of open war,” said Sidi Omar, Polisario’s representative at the UN. “We did not want this war but Morocco has been emboldened by the inaction of the international community.”
In sum, to please the Israelis, Trump has brokered diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab governments mainly to increase military hardware sales for US manufacturers. In ways reminiscent of the Cold War, African states remain pawns in the US game of power politics in the world.
Trump’s legacy, at least in North Africa, will ultimately be no different from that of the chaos sowed by Obama — with naught for the comfort of the people of Western Sahara. Lagardien is a writer and political economist
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