The Foreign Service Journal, May 2012

contain the Barbary Pirates at the turn of the 19th century, faded as Europeans colonized North Africa. Independence and the Cold War brought the U.S. back to the region, leading to close relations with Morocco and Tunisia and frosty relations with Algeria and (after the 1969 coup that brought Qadhafi to power) Libya. Other than those in the hydrocarbon sector, American companies have generally found the Maghreb market inhospitable or in- adequate. In political terms, most Maghreb countries have re- mained stable but authoritarian. The one serious chal- lenge to the established political order, in Algeria during the late 1980s and early 1990s, briefly shook Washington (and many European capitals). Algeria’s return to a sem- blance of civil order, however, coincided with the rise of global jihadism that earlier conflict had heralded — a threat that came to dominate post-9/11 Washington’s ap- proach to the region. Improved counterterrorist coop- eration was central to the rapprochement with Libya, as well as with Algeria. It also largely explained U.S. toler- ance, however reluctant, of the generally poor human rights records in all four countries. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visits to the region over the year since Ben Ali’s fall, which in Feb- ruary finally included her first visit as Secretary to Algiers, have underscored the fact that the Maghreb is now en- joying more than benign neglect. Here is an overview of the situation and key issues in the four countries: • Tunisia . The country that launched the Arab Spring has the greatest promise of the four to get the transition right, but the socioeconomic factors that triggered the uprising may actually become more intractable. In ret- rospect, toppling the Ben Ali regime was the easy part. (See “Tunisia’s Identity Crisis” by Victoria Taylor, p. 27.) • Libya . Unlike Tunisia, whose hollow governmental institutions survived enough to facilitate transition, Libya’s revolution completely shattered what passed for a nation-state. Indeed, the country is now dealing with the consequences of Qadhafi’s folly in creating a state that putatively conferred authority to the masses, but arro- gated to himself the role of “guide of the revolution.” Libya’s reconstitution as a uni- tary state could be contested and protracted. So far, tribal leaders have not asserted themselves, so whatever power exists, including over the oilfields, is in the hands of revolutionary leaders with di- verse agendas. The prevailing in- security and the adamant refusal of armed militias to give up their weapons are both fueled by a widespread desire for revenge after 42 years of repression and misrule. This propensity is aggravated among Libyans from Benghazi and eastern Libya following years of neglect and bloody suppression by a regime centered in Tripoli. Recent calls from Benghazi for some sort of partition or regional autonomy suggest a tough battle ahead for those hoping to retain a unitary state. The media and Western analysts have likely exagger- ated the significance of the proclamation of sharia as the basis of law in Libya, since it was already more or less en- shrined there, at least in respect to personal status. But there is legitimate cause for concern about the rights of women, as well as the presence in any regime of jihadists who not only opposed Qadhafi, but received training and inspiration from al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In this context, the flow of weapons out of Libya into the surrounding Sahel is a very real threat to the country’s neighbors, as well as to the United States and Europe. Most observers attribute the dramatic seizure by Taureg rebels of most of northern Mali in recent weeks to the weaponry those rebels brought home after fighting alongside Qadhafi loyalists. Tripoli’s concentration on re-establishing domestic order, moreover, means ending its international commit- ments, which will have profound, if currently little un- derstood, ramifications for the African Union. It will also seriously affect several African states that have depended heavily on Libyan largesse and willingness to employ im- migrant laborers. • Algeria . Except for a few tense days in early Janu- ary 2011, when a spike in food prices led to loosely coor- dinated riots across its north, the memory of the bloody 1990s kept Algeria from emulating what was happening in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. Other factors likely include 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 2 F OCUS The flow of weapons out of Libya into the surrounding Sahel is a very real threat to the country’s neighbors, as well as the United States and Europe.