Washington Proves Cooperation with Morocco, Ignores Polisario Demands
The Pentagon’s 2023 budget contains no restrictions on strengthening U.S.-Moroccan military cooperation. Next year’s African Lion drills were also proven, in a move that highlights the lack of change in the US democratic administration in the official positions regarding cooperation between Washington and Rabat announced by former US President Donald Trump, which included American recognition of the Moroccanity of the Sahara.
With this, Morocco achieved a new victory that would strengthen the international positions on the Moroccan identity of the Sahara, something that was discussed in American circles by certain figures and with Algerian instigation that pushed for the cancelation of the previous official American support for the autonomy proposal in the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty as the only realistic basis for the resolution of the conflict with the Polisario Front.
President Joe Biden approved the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2023 last Friday, after it was approved by Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The annual Pentagon budget outlines issues of foreign cooperation with U.S. allies, sometimes including standard-setting reviews of such cooperation with allies or nonallies.
The US defense budget data also point to milestones in the course of strengthening the Moroccanity of the Sahara: the lack of any restrictions on US-Moroccan military cooperation undermined the efforts of US lobbies known for their support of the polisario.
Former Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Defense and Security, was a leading political figure who fought to pressure the Biden administration into taking actions that tighten the screws on Morocco, including reviewing military cooperation.
But the 2023 U.S. defense budget ran counter to Jim Inhofe’s desire and contained no restrictions or conditions linking U.S. military and security cooperation to Morocco’s commitment to open negotiations with the secessionist Polisario Front over the Moroccan Sahara issue.
The U.S. Defense Budget Act also neglected an earlier proposal by Inhofe, known as one of the polisario’s most vocal and secessionist figures, to move the 2023 version of African Lion maneuvers elsewhere than Morocco.
The former US senator claimed last June, when he proposed that Rabat be denied the embrace of the African Lion maneuvers, that the Kingdom was putting obstacles in the way of settling the conflict in the Sahara, a fallacy promoted by the separatist front and Algeria that resonated with lobbies hostile to Moroccan interests. But it was disintegrated as soon as the US defense budget had no reference against the Moroccan partner.
The former Republican senator fell in the mid-term congressional elections last November with his belligerent views of Morocco dropped, but he continues to lead a seemingly ineffectual effort to position the kingdom as a reliable partner of the United States.
Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin grabbed the Republican Inhofe’s seat.
After former U.S. president Donald Trump lost the last presidential election to his Democratic rival Joe Biden, there was an Algerian bet that Washington would back away from recognizing the Moroccanity of the Sahara and pushed hard for this goal, but its efforts were deadlocked.
Einhoff and the anti-Moroccan lobby also lobbied the ‘new’ U.S. president to retract Trump’s recognition of the Moroccanity of the Sahara, but both failed, as the Democratic administration considers Morocco to be a reliable partner with which Washington has deep ties and strategic interests.
