Trapped by Its Own Model: Algeria at the Edge

Ghazi Ben Ahmed — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 20:53:01 +0000

With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Arab powers are racing to secure Washington’s favor. From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, regional giants are pledging massive U.S. investments—$600 billion from Saudi Arabia, $1.4 trillion over a decade from the UAE—targeting AI, semiconductors, and energy. Amid this geopolitical bidding war, Algeria—long known for its cautious, non-aligned foreign policy—has made a series of unexpected moves

After years of resisting deeper ties with the U.S., Algiers abruptly signed a military agreement with AFRICOM and followed it with an energy deal with ExxonMobil. These rapid overtures seem less a strategic pivot than a sign of regime anxiety—an attempt to stay relevant in a new order defined by transactional diplomacy. But unlike the Gulf monarchies, Algeria lacks financial clout or strategic leverage. It remains a regional giant with feet of clay: economically fragile, diplomatically isolated, and increasingly adrift.

At the heart of Algeria’s outreach lies one goal: recalibrating U.S. policy on Western Sahara. Since Morocco normalized ties with Israel, Washington—particularly under the Trump administration—has backed Rabat’s claim over the disputed territory, marginalizing Algeria’s historic support for Sahrawi self-determination. That support was recently reaffirmed on April 8^th, 2025, when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Rabat and publicly reiterated America’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara, marking a further blow to Algeria’s diplomatic posture. While Algiers continues to block the UN-led political process and refuses to engage as a responsible stakeholder, the narrative in Washington is hardening. U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson recently announced, “I will introduce legislation to designate the Polisario as terrorists. Iran & Putin gaining a foothold in Africa via Polisario. Connect the dots: axis of aggression.” This stark framing no longer views the Polisario as a liberation movement, but as a proxy within a broader authoritarian alliance. Algeria is no longer just isolated — it’s exposed. Behind the talk of sovereignty lies a regime openly backing Iran, Russia, and a separatist militia now described in Washington as part of an “axis of aggression.” The mask has fallen.

Officially, Algeria upholds non-interference and peaceful resolution. In practice, it has long aligned with authoritarian regimes—most notably Iran and the now-fallen Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. These ties, rooted in anti-Western solidarity and opposition to Gulf influence, have left Algeria increasingly out of step with shifting Arab consensus. Algiers remained one of Assad’s last defenders, facilitating Polisario presence in Syria.

Officially, Algeria upholds non-interference and peaceful resolution. In practice, it has long aligned itself with authoritarian regimes—most notably Iran and the now-fallen Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. These ties, rooted in anti-Western solidarity and opposition to Gulf influence, have left Algeria increasingly out of sync with the evolving Arab consensus. Algiers remained one of Assad’s last defenders, facilitating Polisario presence in Syria even as other Arab states distanced themselves. Over the years, Iran has cultivated a wide web of proxies to advance its regional influence. According to The Washington Post, this includes training fighters from the Algeria-backed Polisario Front—nominally focused on Western Sahara, but increasingly embedded in Tehran’s broader militant network. Today, hundreds of these fighters have been detained by Syria’s post-Assad security forces, underscoring just how entangled the Polisario had become in Iran’s shadow wars. This exposure not only further discredits Algeria’s narrative of neutrality, but also reveals the dangerous externalization of a conflict it claims to keep within diplomatic bounds.

Furthermore, maintaining ties with Iran and its alignment with groups like Hamas—while consistent with Algeria’s historical support for Palestine—risks deepening its rift with key Western and Arab partners at a time when strategic neutrality is increasingly difficult to sustain.

With Assad gone and Iran under maximum pressure, Algeria’s authoritarian alliances are crumbling—exposing its strategic vulnerability. Behind its non-interference rhetoric lies a regime that instinctively sides with autocrats, driven by fear of democratic contagion. Since the Arab Spring, Algiers has resisted reform, backing repression over change. Now, as old alliances crumble, it stands increasingly alone—trapped by a model it cannot abandon without threatening the very foundations of its regime.

Meanwhile, regional pressures on Algeria are intensifying. The Sahel is unraveling under successive coups and Russian mercenary influence, Libya remains unstable, and ties with Morocco are frozen over Western Sahara and normalization with Israel. Algeria’s quiet support for Tunisia’s president Kaïs Saïed only adds to its exposure. Once a buffer, Tunisia is now a source of instability—politically repressive, economically paralyzed, and diplomatically shunned.

A collapse could send shockwaves across the border, triggering economic contagion, insecurity, and unrest in Algeria itself, where stagnation, high unemployment, and a disillusioned youth are already testing the regime’s limits.

These mounting pressures are unfolding against a backdrop of economic fragility. Energy remains the backbone of Algeria’s economy—accounting for 98% of exports—but it no longer ensures strategic relevance. As global markets accelerate toward renewables, Algeria failed to seize critical opportunities—particularly during Europe’s pivot away from Russian gas. Years of under-investment, corruption, and mismanagement have stifled production and innovation. Rather than driving transformation, hydrocarbon revenues are increasingly used as a political safety valve—buying social peace in moments of tension, but reinforcing the rentier status quo instead of reforming it.

What Algeria faces today is not a policy crossroads—it is a regime dilemma. Reforming the economy would require dismantling the opaque patronage networks that control the distribution of oil and gas rents. These networks have long shielded the regime from accountability, entrenched elite control, and stifled entrepreneurship. Reform would mean loosening the system’s grip on power. Refusal would accelerate decline.

Algeria is no longer just drifting — it is decaying in plain sight. A regime built on oil rents and military rule is now out of time, out of ideas, and out of allies. It clings to outdated alliances, obstructs diplomatic progress, and resists every pressure to reform — not out of strategy, but out of fear. Fear of accountability. Fear of its own people. But this equilibrium of repression and denial is brittle — and it may not hold much longer. The spark could come any time from within, or it could arrive from across the border. Tunisia’s deepening unrest — political paralysis, social explosion, economic collapse — is unfolding next door, and its aftershocks will not stop at the frontier. The anger swelling in Tunis today mirrors the frustration simmering in Algiers. And when pressure builds in parallel, collapse often comes in waves. Algerians have endured too much for too long. They deserve more than a system built to preserve power — not serve the people.

This article was written by our founder Ghazi Ben Ahmed on the media The Geopolitics.The Geopolitics (TGP) is a uniquely global source of news, analysis and commentary on current geopolitical issues, politics and international relations.

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Algiers, Tunis and Rabat: relations soured?

Ahmed Lagha — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 08:42:13 +0000

The neutrality advocated by Bourguiba in the conflict between Morocco and Algeria, particularly regarding the Western Sahara issue, is now under threat. Tensions persist in the Maghreb, notably due to the unresolved territorial conflict of Western Sahara, firmly pitting Morocco against the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria.

Western Sahara, formerly a Spanish colony, is claimed by Morocco as integral to its territory, while the Polisario Front (on the Algerian side) seeks independence for the region. In 1975, after Spain’s withdrawal, Morocco and Mauritania annexed most of the territory, sparking a war with the Polisario Front. A ceasefire was signed with the UN in 1991, but the final status of Western Sahara remains pending, despite mediation attempts and peace talks.

In 2022, tensions between Tunisia and Morocco escalated when Kaïs Saïed invited Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, to the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). Tensions intensified on April 22 with the Tunisian authorities organizing a tripartite Maghreb meeting (Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia) in Tunis, aimed at forming action groups to address the impact of sub-Saharan clandestine migrations. Discussions also covered political, economic, and social issues.

The Tunisian authorities, while praising the “brotherly and friendly” countries, omitted to invite Morocco and Mauritania to the consultative meetings.

The Algerian diplomacy chief defends these initiatives as addressing the void left by the moribund Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) since 1994. Founded in Marrakech in 1989, Morocco’s ambition was to strengthen political and economic ties among Maghreb countries.

On the Moroccan side, the media accuse Algeria of attempting to sow discord in North Africa, “aimed at making it appear that Algeria is not isolated in its neighborhood.”

On August 20, the Moroccan King Mohammed VI stated in his annual throne speech a “clear message to the world,” affirming that “the Western Sahara issue is the prism through which Morocco views its international environment.”

Due to the unilateral decisions of Kaïs Saïed, the positive neutrality once expressed by Bourguiba regarding the conflict between Algiers and Rabat is now threatened. The supposed alliances of the Tunisian authorities with Polisario figures may one day lead us to be considered enemies of Rabat.

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Trapped by Its Own Model: Algeria at the Edge

Ghazi Ben Ahmed

Algiers, Tunis and Rabat: relations soured?

Ahmed Lagha