Sahara Dilemma

Carter decides to aid Morocco

Like so many African crises before it, the Polisario dispute in the Sahara between Morocco and Algeria has caused the Carter Administration an inordinate amount of worry. As in such similarly intricate problems of the recent past that involved Zaire, Angola and the Ethiopian-Somali fighting in the Horn of Africa, the Administration has been sharply divided over how to protect its improving relations with the Third World while at the same time countering rising Soviet influence.

In the present case, the question is in what way the U.S. can best use its influence toward bringing about a cease-fire in the Western Sahara between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario guerrillas, who want to establish an independent state in the area formerly ruled by Spain. Morocco's King Hassan II is pressing the U.S. to sell him the Bronco planes and Cobra helicopter gunships he feels he needs to continue the fight against the guerrillas. The U.S. State Department opposes the sale and cites a CIA assessment that Morocco cannot win the war against the Polisarios. The State Department also fears that the arms sale would merely provoke the Polisarios into seeking more sophisticated weapons from Algeria, Libya and even the Soviet Union. Moreover, the planes, if delivered, would be vulnerable to the Soviet-made Sam7 missiles that Algeria has supplied the Polisarios. As one U.S. arms dealer in Rabat sees it, the additional American arms would simply "increase the casualty rate on both sides."

On the other hand, President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski as well as the Defense Department believe that the weapons would strengthen Hassan and make him more amenable to seeking a negotiated settlement. The question is exceedingly tricky: Washington does not want to betray Morocco, a longtime ally. But neither does it want to jeopardize its improving relations with Algeria, and not merely because that country now supplies 9% of U.S. crude oil imports. Last week President Carter decided that the U.S. must support Morocco with the arms sale, though the transaction has also to be approved by a wary Congress. Then he sent Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Rabat to urge the King to seek a compromise. At the same time Brzezinski left for Algiers to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of the beginning of Algeria's war of independence from France--and to explain the Administration's position to Algerian President Benjedid Chadli.

In a sense, Carter is gambling that Hassan is too beleaguered militarily and politically to resist a settlement of the dispute. Since last summer, the Polisario attacks have grown from small local skirmishes to pitched battles involving thousands of guerrillas. In an attack last month, the Moroccans were forced to abandon a key defense post at Mahbes, about 35 miles inside the Moroccan border. At the same time, Hassan's economy has been hobbled by 25% inflation, skyrocketing fuel bills and bad harvests. He is not particularly popular among his countrymen, but so far they have supported him on at least one important issue, the war against the Polisarios.

What will Hassan do now? In the past, he has sometimes threatened to initiate a policy of "hot pursuit" against Algeria. Such talk alarms not only the U.S. but also Hassan's Arab allies, including the Saudis, who realize that all-out fighting between Morocco and Algeria would create a new axis of conflict in the divided Arab world. But two weeks ago, Hassan offered a little hope to his friends when he observed, in a French television interview: "I have many faults, certainly more faults than good qualities, but fortunately I am not stubborn." He then insisted that he would never resort to the "political aphrodisiac" of launching a strike into Algeria.

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