Ref: AD-3056
Summary: Algeria’s severing of diplomatic relations with the UAE is a statement that the North African country has lost patience with what it sees as Abu Dhabi’s meddling in its neighbourhood.
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This is a very interesting and well-thought-out piece, particularly in the way it brings together the different dimensions of the UAE’s role across the broader MENA and Sahel regions. The attempt to connect Western Sahara, the Sahel, Libya, Sudan, and the evolving Saudi-UAE relationship is particularly useful.
That said, I think there is one point where the framing could be pushed further, starting with the title itself. I am not sure that what we are witnessing is primarily a “rearranging of alliances.” One could argue that the more striking development is that Algeria has finally decided to openly confront Emirati “meddling” to influence rather than continue trying to compartmentalize its disagreements with Abu Dhabi.
What also caught my attention is some of the language used around the UAE, particularly in this sentence: “what it sees as Abu Dhabi’s meddling in its neighbourhood.” Using “sees” in this very context is interesting. I understand the caution in attributing allegations, but the article seems to apply a much higher degree of certainty when describing Algeria’s decision and a much greater degree of caution when discussing the UAE’s documented and alleged involvement across so many regional conflicts.
There is an important distinction between saying that Algeria alleges Emirati interference and acknowledging the substantial body of reporting and international scrutiny concerning Emirati support, financing, political relationships, and networks connected to conflicts in places such as Sudan, Libya, Mali, Yemen, etc. While the UAE has denied a number of these allegations, of course, that does not make the issue analytically neutral or something that can simply be reduced to Algerian perception.
The same applies to Western Sahara. It would be too reductive, in my view, or, I dare say, even too naïve, to read Algeria’s rupture primarily through the Western Sahara prism! Western Sahara is certainly an important part of the picture, particularly given the UAE’s increasingly close relationship with Morocco and the strategic benefits it derives from that relationship. But for anyone following Algeria and the region closely, the accumulated grievances go well beyond Rabat.
President Tebboune has himself publicly accused the UAE of attempting to interfere in Algeria’s elections and has repeatedly criticized Emirati involvement in conflicts across the region. This also includes what Algeria perceives as efforts to encourage, well substantiated and fund divisions inside the country, as well as broader forms of influence and support that have played out across MENA and the Sahel over the last two decades.
The broader point here may not simply be that Algeria has become uncomfortable with the UAE’s support for Morocco. It is that Algiers appears to have concluded that Emirati regional activism or activities has crossed a threshold where it can no longer be treated as a series of separate foreign-policy disagreements.
What looks from the outside like several disconnected disputes; Morocco and Western Sahara, the Sahel, Libya, Sudan, Algeria’s domestic political space, and the question of external intervention, may, from Algiers’ perspective, form part of a much broader pattern. And perhaps this is where the article’s central argument becomes even more interesting: the real shift may not be the creation of new blocs, but the disappearance of the assumption that regional powers can maintain multiple partnerships without those partnerships having consequences elsewhere.
Algeria’s decision could therefore be read less as another move on an emerging regional chessboard and more as a signal that, at least in its own strategic environment, Emirati influence over the region can no longer be projected and expanded quietly!
I think this gets very much at the argument I was trying to make with the piece. My point was precisely that several long standing disputes have now become interconnected enough that Algeria no longer sees them as issues that can be compartmentalised. The idea that this represents a threshold in how Algiers views Emirati influence — rather than simply another move in a shifting alliance system — is exactly the distinction I was trying to capture. So I’m glad to see we’ve reached a consensus on that point.