The Algerian regime's problem is not with Morocco
The Algerian regime cannot live without tension, i.e. under normal conditions. This is because it has to convince Algerians that there is an imminent external danger at all times in order to distract attention from internal failures.
There is only one logic to the language of escalation adopted by the Algerian regime in its dealings with the Kingdom of Morocco. One word that sums up this logic is the word peace. The Algerian regime fears peace, since internal peace in Algeria itself or in North Africa, especially with Morocco, loses its raison d'être. Peace is the number one enemy of the Algerian regime, which believes it must live permanently in a climate of war. In the midst of this war it is waging, it did not realise that it had to reconcile with its people.
He does not realise that this war will come back to him sooner or later. He had already returned in 1988, when a popular uprising revealed the reality of the regime. The first thing the Algerians did, in the manner of the Palestinian uprising at the time against the Israeli occupation, was to go down Didouche Mourad Street in the centre of the Algerian capital and smash up the offices of the so-called "national liberation movement". Among these offices was the office of the "Polisario", which Algerians know is nothing more than a tool of the regime used in the service of a group of officials for whom the proxy war against Morocco is a source of livelihood.
The Algerian regime cannot live without tension, i.e. under normal conditions. This is because it has to convince Algerians that there is an imminent external danger at all times in order to distract attention from the internal failure it has provoked. The Algerian should think about facing this external danger, however illusory, in order to ignore what the regime, the least that can be described as led by a group of officials linked to the economic interests that unite them, has done to him.
Except for the fear of peace, this is not what justifies the Algerian regime's continued escalation with Morocco. The escalation finally included a threat to use force in response to an event that may or may not be true. This event is represented by the Algerian presidency's announcement of the killing of three Algerian drivers in an area between the Moroccan Sahara and the Mauritanian border.
Instead of the Algerian Presidency adopting wisdom and seeking calm to find out the truth of what happened, if anything really happened, it rushed to threaten Morocco, with direct threats to a country that can in no way seek a confrontation with Algeria. All that matters to Morocco is Morocco itself and the Moroccan person ... and Morocco's development project to eliminate all forms of poverty. Such a project is part of the real war against terrorism and extremism to uproot them. This is the project of King Mohammed VI of Morocco, who has repeatedly called for cooperation between Morocco and Algeria, as this is in the interests of the two countries and the two peoples that make up the two countries.
What the Algerian regime's recent round of escalation with Morocco reveals is the failure of the proxy war the regime has waged with the neighbouring country since 1975, the date of Morocco's restoration of the desert territories that were linked to the Spanish coloniser. Morocco used peaceful means through the "Green March". After that, it fought the war waged by Algeria through the "Polisario" through the defensive walls protecting the Moroccan Sahara. It was the genius of King Hassan II, may God have mercy on him, who inspected the Sahara in 1985, confirming the end of a phase in the struggle to establish the Moroccan character of the Sahara.
What the regime is doing in Algeria these days by levelling false accusations against Morocco, such as bombing an area near the border with Mauritania, which led to the killing of three Algerian citizens, is but one expression of the difficult situation the regime is facing. This regime can only engage in direct confrontation with Morocco.
The Algerian regime's problem is that Morocco rejects any such confrontation. Morocco is not afraid of peace. On the contrary, it seeks peace and better relations with Algeria. King Mohammed VI has not missed an occasion in recent years to call for dialogue at the highest level in order to establish a new stage of good relations between the two countries. He went so far as to describe Morocco and Algeria as "twins".
It is shameful that the Algerian regime has had no response to Moroccan good intentions other than to escalate with the various means at its disposal, starting with breaking off diplomatic relations between the two countries instead of working to open the borders between them. The borders have been closed since 1994, on Algeria's initiative. Closing the borders is just one proof of the great fear that Algerians will go to Morocco and see the difference between life there and life in Algeria itself.
The Algerian regime lost its proxy war against Morocco. Not a day goes by without Morocco scoring points in its favour, especially when it comes to the Moroccan Sahara. The Trump administration recognised the Moroccan character of the Sahara. This was an official US recognition of this fact. The Algerian regime, which had hoped that Joe Biden's administration might reconsider the decision taken by the previous administration, was disappointed. It turned out that Morocco knew how to behave with a country called the United States, and that the issue was not so much about a particular administration as it was about relations between one country and another.
How far can the Algerian regime go in the escalation with Morocco? The answer is that it can go far in that after moving from conflict to direct war.
The problem with the Algerian regime remains that Morocco does not want war of any kind. What the Algerian regime does not realise is that its problem is not with Morocco, but with the Algerian people, who see their rulers as waging a war against them. The Algerian people expressed their rejection of this war, before Morocco expressed it. They expressed their rejection by boycotting the presidential elections that brought Abdelmadjid Tebboune to the Presidency of the Republic on the orders of the military establishment, and they expressed their rejection by boycotting the referendum on constitutional reform a few months ago. There is no truer expression than this expression, on two different occasions, of the nature of the Algerian regime's problem, a problem it is always trying to escape from: it is the regime's problem with the Algerian people, not with Morocco!