Los fracasos de una diplomacia bajo órdenes
Excluded from the peace process in Syria, marginalized within the AMU and absent from major international meetings, the "new Algeria" of the Tebboune-Chengriha tandem collects diplomatic setbacks, one after another, while its media never ceases to trumpet "the return in force of Algerian diplomacy", transforming the failure of the Arab summit held in Algiers on November 1 into a success that exists only in their imagination.
During the preparations for the Algiers summit, Algerian leaders kept shouting to anyone who would listen that the meeting of the heads of Arab states would be an unprecedented success and would be an opportunity to reunite the Arab ranks. The choice of the date of November 1st was a way to play on the sensitive chord of the peoples and the Arab States who have sacralized the Algerian war of liberation against French colonialism. This is what led the Arab rulers to accept the holding of the Arab League summit in November 2022, whereas it was to be held in March of the same year. The summit was cancelled because of the bellicose policy of Algerian leaders against their Moroccan neighbor, with whom they had broken off diplomatic relations a few months earlier and closed the airspace to all Moroccan civilian and military aircraft, in addition to maintaining the closure of borders dating back to 1994.
By announcing with great fanfare the willingness of the regime in Algiers to make the November summit that of the reunification of Arab ranks while maintaining their hostile policy against the western neighbor, the leaders of Arab countries have not been fooled by an Algerian diplomacy containing many contradictions and lacking sincerity and imagination. Despite the call of the Moroccan sovereign to the leaders of the Arab Gulf countries to come in large numbers to Algiers for the success of the summit, none of the kings and emirs of this region had gone to a meeting whose objective was much more to restore an Algerian blazon sufficiently tarnished than to give this Arab league a new breath of life it needs.
The only head of state from the Gulf states who went to Algiers was the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani. His presence did his hosts more harm than good. Not only did the Emir arrive late and therefore did not attend the opening of the conference, but he did not attend the meeting the next day. He spent the day sightseeing in the Kasbah, in old Algiers, after forcing the Algerian president to suspend the work of the summit to accompany him to lay the foundation stone of a hospital funded by Qatar and built by the Germans.
Tebboune may have purred that his summit was a great success, it remains that all observers whether Arab or foreign have made the finding of a failure which the least we can say that it was announced. A failure for which the responsibility is fully assumed by a diplomacy totally submitted to the orders of the military who are fixated on Morocco to justify their excessive spending on weapons from which they take large bribes in full view of everyone. This is no secret for anyone.
Syria, another quickly lost trade register
Algiers, which has long chimed in on the Syrian issue to make it a trade register that would divert local public opinion from its real political and socio-economic problems, has just suffered a bitter setback on the Arab political scene.
On April 30, Jordan's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs invited his counterparts from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Egypt and Iraq to hold a meeting on the Syrian crisis, which has been going on for over a dozen years. This meeting is a continuation of the one held on April 14 in Riyadh at the invitation of Prince Faisal Benferhane Al Saud, Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs. In both meetings, Algeria, which holds the presidency of the Arab League since the Algiers summit of November 1, 2022, is superbly ignored. Worse still. The day after the meeting in Riyadh, a message was sent by the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs to his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita to keep him informed of the resolutions taken during this meeting.
Tebboune's ears really warmed up when he heard the news. Not only does not a single Arab country support Algiers, even if only with lip service, in its anti-Moroccan belligerence, but they go so far as to ignore the Algerian soldiery when it comes to playing on what the Algerians consider their turf. They are the ones who maneuvered behind the scenes and in public for Syria's return to the Arab concert. And against all odds, it is the Gulf countries with Egypt, Iraq and Jordan that take the case and are limited to informing Morocco without paying the slightest attention to Algeria, which holds the presidency of the Arab League. A real beating for a power in search of international legitimacy for lack of legitimacy on the internal level.
On the African level, things are no better. Nor on the Maghreb level. Nor are things any better in the Maghreb. The recent appointment of the Moroccan diplomat Amina Salmane as permanent representative of the AMU to the African Union has earned a volley of green wood to Algerian diplomacy from the Tunisian Tayeb Baccouche Secretary General of the Maghreb Union, on the television channel France 24, when Algiers, through its ambassador in Addis Ababa, has timidly challenged the appointment of the Moroccan diplomat.
To conclude this round on the setbacks of Algerian diplomacy, it is worth noting that it was terminated, in total discretion, the functions of five of the seven super diplomats appointed as special envoys on sensitive issues.
While their appointment in September 2021 was made with great fanfare, their end of function which is an admission of failure has been the subject of a discreet publication in the Official Gazette of April 16. The two remaining are Amar Belani who has just been appointed Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without knowing if he has kept his previous function of "special envoy to Western Sahara and the Maghreb countries". A special envoy who has never set foot in the Sahara or in any other Maghreb country since his appointment to this post. He had limited himself to multiplying bellicose statements against Morocco during the first months of his mandate. Since then, nothing.
The second super diplomat is Boudjemaa Dilmi, "special envoy in charge of African issues and monitoring reconciliation and peace in Mali.
In conclusion, diplomacy has never known so much instability as under the regime of the duo Chengriha -Tebboune. 3 ministers of foreign affairs have succeeded each other in 3 years and creation of 7 positions of super diplomats quickly dissolved for lack of performance. "A performance that could never see the light of day as long as the diplomat is only an executor of orders from the barracks", suggests a diplomat who knew the glorious times of Algerian diplomacy.