 |
| Volume IX, March 2002, Number 1 |
| |
| EXCERPT: Algeria and U.S. Interests: Containing Radical Islam and Promoting Democracy |
| |
| Yahia H. Zoubir |
| |
Dr. Zoubir is professor of international studies and academic director of the Thunderbird French-Geneva program at Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management.1
The terrorist attacks on the United
States on September 11, 2001,
will undoubtedly change international relations in significant ways. Those events will induce the United States to alter its policies toward a number of regimes. Indeed, soon after the attacks, and in order to build a broad "coalition against terrorism," Washington reached out to countries that until recently were considered hostile or at least not so friendly -- even Iran, which is still featured on its list of so-called "rogue states" (along with Libya, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Cuba and North Korea). Several countries, nervous about U.S. reaction, have begun revising their policies. Libya, whose enmity toward the United States is legendary,2 has been quick to position itself on the side of antiterrorism. For other governments, the "global war on terrorism" offers a golden opportunity to improve their relations with the United States, whose support they seek to solve their own domestic and/or regional problems. This might be the route that Algeria will follow to consolidate the good rapport that it has developed with Washington in recent years. However, in order to understand U.S.-Algerian relations, it is critical to understand not only the historical background but also the geopolitical realities.
Algeria has never constituted a priority for the United States. Although there have existed periods of cordiality and good economic ties, Algeria's relations with the United States have historically been marked by misunderstandings, suspicion and at times great antagonism as the two countries collided over the Arab-Israeli conflict, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Nicaragua, Cuba and Grenada. The coolness in Algerian-American relations can be traced back to Algeria's pre-independence era.3 Indeed, U.S. support for colonial France during Algeria's War of National Liberation shaped Algeria's post-independence relations with the superpower. The nature of Algeria's national and international struggle against France molded its future foreign policy. Thus, after independence, Algeria's radical foreign policy and its position of leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and other international organizations often contradicted U.S. policy objectives and interests. Worse still, Algeria's privileged relations with the Soviet Union, America's archenemy, placed the two countries on a collision course. Yet, notwithstanding the ideological and political differences between the two countries, American and Algerian policy makers (including President Houari Boumedienne) pursued pragmatic courses of action that prevented foreign-policy clashes from undermining advantageous economic relations. Substantial commercial interests, mainly in the hydrocarbon sector, induced this pragmatism, as well as a mutual willingness to find common ground on a number of political issues, especially as they pertained to the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) and the Near East.
|
1 This is an expanded version of his article, "The United States and Algeria: From Conflict to Cooperation," published in Spanish in Nacíon Arabe (Spain), Vol. 15, No. 46, January 2002.
|
| |
|
