Tebboune requests meeting with Joe Biden
The American ballet continues in Algeria. Meetings between Algerian and American officials are multiplying, but always at the request of the US administration and its representatives. In just over a month, Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf visited Washington on August 9, at the invitation (some say the invitation) of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
This was followed on September 3 by a visit to Algiers by the Deputy Under-Secretary of State, who met with the Secretary General of the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the absence of the Minister, who was touring abroad. Four days later, on September 6, in an unprecedented move, the CIA Director spoke by telephone with the Algerian Army Chief of Staff. On Wednesday September 13, Elizabeth Moore Aubin, Ambassador of the United States of America, met with President Tebboune at El-Mouradia Palace, headquarters of the President of the Republic. It was a veritable American diplomatic deployment in Algeria. Unprecedented.
The US ambassador to Algiers is very active. She has visited more than twenty wilayas (departments) in the four corners of the country. She has met a number of political and military figures, including Army Chief of Staff General Saïd Chengriha. A visit that raises many questions, given that it is not the role of an ambassador to meet the military chief of the host country. This is the prerogative of defense attachés.
Mrs. Elizabeth Moore Aubin also paid a visit to the two Arabic-language newspapers that had published a slur against the United Arab Emirates in El-Khabar, and information about the dismissal of the UAE ambassador and four other diplomats on the En-Nahar web portal. This information was quickly withdrawn, prompting the late-night dismissal of the Minister of Communication, Mohamed Bouslimani, on June 20.
According to well-informed observers, this American ballet is essentially about resolving the "Western Sahara issue", which is being stubbornly supported by Algiers and continues to poison relations between the two leading countries in the region, Morocco and Algeria, posing a serious threat to peace in the region. Washington seems determined to put an end to this affair, which may well see the Russians enter the fray and give a new twist to the geopolitical situation in North Africa, even if Moscow maintains the best relations with Rabat.
Taking advantage of American insistence on settling this thorny issue, which has dragged on for almost half a century, the Algerians are keen to make themselves more important in the eyes of the US administration, by trying to extract the maximum in return for the concessions that will be made to one of their Moroccan adversary's staunchest allies. It's true that Washington is trying to get Algiers to admit a reality it stubbornly ignores, namely the Moroccan nature of the Sahara, which has become a reality thanks to countless achievements in socio-economic development.
Acknowledgment of this reality by Algiers would be nothing less than a stinging slap in the face, and would be most unwelcome at a time when Algerian diplomacy is suffering one setback after another. The latest of these, which the Algerian press failed to mention after several days of quibbling, was the Nigerins' rejection of Algerian mediation in the crisis following the military coup of July 26.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess that the Tebboune-Chengriha tandem is reluctant to accept the American proposals. These proposals are likely to put the two men at odds with one year to go before the presidential election. Hence the need for the tenant of the El-Mouradia palace to express to the US ambassador in Algiers his need to meet Joe Biden on the occasion of his forthcoming trip to New York, where the UN General Assembly is due to be held on September 19.
Unable to bear the fatigue of long journeys, Tebboune is obliged to make stopovers on the way there and back. As he did on his trip to China, with stopovers in Doha on the outward journey and Istanbul on the return. The Algerian President would like to seize the opportunity of his New York trip to meet the American Chief Executive. This would be an opportunity for him, first of all, to pin a meeting with one of the world's great powers after Putin and Jinping, and make up for his failures at the BRICS and at mediation in Ukraine and Niger. Once his ego has been satisfied, he will be keen to secure American support for a 2nd term in office, through which he will dangle the possibility of a settlement of the Sahara issue.
Backed by American support, Tebboune could make a strong case to the Algerian generals for another five years at the head of the Algerian state. Of course, Algeria's kingmakers would never spit on American support, even if it were given through Tebboune. It's an assurance that the Americans, and the West as a whole, will continue to turn a blind eye to Algeria's clear backward slide in terms of democracy and individual freedoms.
Tebboune's plans are not lost on the Americans. That goes without saying. So Joe Biden's decision to agree to meet Tebboune at the White House in the next few days is bound to be carefully considered in Washington. Americans never give anything for nothing, and are not easily conned.
