Perspectives Series
Religion, Politics, and Power in the Middle East
This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics generally, as well as the global wave of democratization in the late twentieth century, as background to different interpretations of political Islam. It analyzes the role of these movements in Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, the Persian Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia), and the Palestinian community.
Amid the Sahel region’s crises — a continent-spanning web of communal and terrorist insurgencies and eight coups d’etat since 2020 — U.S. and European attention is focused elsewhere: on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s expanding global influence and the Israel-Palestine conflict. But an opportunity to promote stabilization in the Sahel, notably in Mali and Niger, could be U.S. collaboration with Algeria. Algeria shares borders with those violence-stricken states, and also the U.S. desire to help stabilize them and their Sahel neighbors. A first question for any joint U.S-Algerian engagement is whether the two countries’ visions for Sahel stability, particularly in Mali and Niger, are aligned or contradictory.
Democracies and democracy advocates should welcome this week’s tenuously hopeful sign in Algeria’s announcement that the 10-week-old military junta in Niger has accepted Algiers’ offer to mediate in a transition to civilian, constitutional rule. Still, Algeria’s government and the junta left unclear the extent of any agreement on mediation, notably disagreeing on a basic element: the duration of a transition process. Algeria can bring significant strengths to a mediating role. In stepping forward from what most often has been a cautious posture in the region, Algeria creates an opportunity that international partners should seek to strengthen.
For decades, Algeria has eschewed participation in international affairs. As a member of the non-aligned movement, the country has been described as “anti-Western,” “anti-capitalist,” and “insular.” Privately, American diplomats describe the government as one of the region’s most challenging to penetrate and understand. But over the last two years, there have been signs that Algeria is changing and starting to flex its economic and political muscles, which has accelerated in the wake of the war in Ukraine, with Algeria capitalizing on opportunities created by changes to global energy markets. Algeria has also increasingly asserted itself in the African Union and Arab League, stepped up its lobbying efforts in foreign capitals and is deepening ties with Beijing. But is Algeria ready for the responsibility that accompanies the role it is positioning to play?
Morocco notched a diplomatic win this week as the United Arab Emirates opened a consulate in the Western Sahara, where Rabat has long sought international recognition of its claim over the disputed territory. It also signaled a troubling regional shift. The hostility between Turkey and the Saudi-aligned Arab states risks embroiling the Maghreb region, much as it already complicates conflicts and politics from Libya to the Red Sea region. In North Africa, as across the greater Middle East, a widening of the Turkish-Saudi confrontation is heightening the risks of destabilization and threats to U.S. regional and counterterrorism interests.