Word: hassan
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...Carter resolved a foreign policy impasse by approving the sale of advanced U.S. arms to Morocco. The State Department had argued against the sale, contending that if Morocco's King Hassan II got American weapons, his opponents, the Polisario guerrillas, might solicit more help from the Soviet Union, posing the threat of another superpower confrontation in Africa. Carter instead bought the argument of National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Harold Brown that the U.S. could not afford the downfall of Hassan, a prominent friend in the Third World. An unspoken but very real consideration: coming after...
Earlier this month Morocco's smaller neighbor to the south, Mauritania (pop. 1.5 million), abruptly made a separate peace with the Polisario and gave up its own claims to Tiris el Gharbia, the lower reaches of the Western Sahara. To forestall a Polisario takeover there, Hassan promptly occupied the area with 2,500 legionnaires and proclaimed it Morocco's 40th province. Though it was cheered by flag-waving children, that annexation sorely raised the level of tension across the Maghreb. Algeria immediately accused Hassan of being manipulated by "colonialists and imperialists." The Polisario vowed to "intensify military operations...
Though the six-hour battle left 500 Polisarios dead, compared with 125 Moroccans, according to Rabat's claims, the attack clearly shocked Hassan. Last week the King himself made a somewhat desperate public pitch to justify the annexation and try to regain some international support by portraying himself as the guardian of Western interests in North Africa. Shifting the focus of the conflict, he accused Libya most of all for the destabilization in the region. "Colonel [Muammar] Gaddafi would be happy if a conflict broke out between Algeria and Morocco," the King declared. "We would both come...
...similar, private offer of negotiations last year, Hassan had arranged to meet secretly with Houari Boumedienne, but the Algerian President's fatal illness forced a cancellation. Now it is more difficult than ever to see the outline of a possible settlement. Algeria has little to lose by continuing to support the Polisario so long as its own troops are not involved and Libya continues to provide much of the rebels' financing. For its part, Morocco is clearly not willing to give up any of its annexed real estate peaceably. Besides his own irredentist impulse, Hassan also...
...Hassan's dilemma is also Washington's. Despite its 1960 defense agreement with Morocco, the U.S. has tried to remain neutral in the dispute and has refused to supply Hassan with arms to use against the Polisario. The Administration is in no mood to jeopardize sensitive oil and gas deals in Algeria, where the new, post-Boumedienne regime of Benjedid Chadli shows growing signs of wanting to seek better ties with the West...