The late King Hassan II passed away ten years ago, and had hopes that remained unfulfilled. He used to hope that Paris and Madrid would take the initiative to open the book of their Maghreb relations, and particularly with Rabat and Algiers. He believed that the problems of the colonialist era had ramifications linked to inherited borders and types of sensitivities that resulted from that period, which could be solved by acknowledging historical realities. King Hassan II knew that the political disputes of the North Africa region have their own flavor, close to bitterness rather than surrendering to facts. The taste might be sweet if a reading of these facts is accepted and heeded, before the page is closed. Thus, he did not reject a request by the Elysee Palace or his Spanish friend, King Juan Carlos, as long as it was connected to efforts to end the Sahara conflict and achieve openness in the Maghreb, but this was to no avail. On the tenth commemoration of his death, the head of the Spanish diplomatic corps, Miguel Angel Moratinos, revealed that his country was prepared to work on the normalization of Moroccan-Algerian relations at a time when the two neighboring capitals never stopped exchanging cautious signals vis-à-vis the conditions of the absent normalization. It was not a new stance by Madrid; the prime minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, said once that a big solution for the region's problems was taking shape, through an invitation to quadripartite dialogue (Morocco, Algeria, France and Spain) to search for the best possible way to cement stability, accord and understanding on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Zapatero's wish was not achieved in the way he was counting on to enable his country to play an influential role in the region. Madrid began to compete against Paris in its areas of traditional influence, and its economic and strategic interests grew in a remarkable way. But Madrid chose to adopt Paris' way of dealing with problems in the Maghreb. It was no coincidence that the two European capitals have become the stopping-point for the trips by international mediators tasked with settling the Sahara conflict. This means that Moratinos' stance is the opposite of his country's vision of the problems and the solutions. Madrid's pragmatism is clear. It is aware that the solution to the Sahara conflict will free the chained hands of the Maghreb and make it point to the situation in the occupied cities of Ceuta and Melila, in the north. However, the size of Spain's economic and commercial interests with Morocco and Algeria force it to anticipate events; Madrid has examined the fruit of accord between two neighboring countries, by continuing to supply it with Algerian gas, which passes through Moroccan territory, and is pushing Rabat into ratifying a coastal fishing agreement sponsored by the European Union that covers the Saharan provinces. In fact, it is wagering on becoming a key partner in investments in both Morocco and Algeria. Madrid's vision, which it openly says is the most affected by North Africa's security and political problems, and especially with regard to rising illegal migration, extremism and terror, involves the wider context of its undertaking a mediation initiative between Rabat and Algiers. On the one hand, it is preparing for a role to play upon its presidency of the European Union next year, and on the other, wants to be in the picture when it comes to any regional arrangements to achieve a breakthrough. Whether this was behind the prompting of the international envoy to the Sahara conflict, the American Christopher Ross, to look for a Maghreb political cover to revive his standing, or because it wants to ride the train before it takes off, this reflects an interesting transformation in how to look at the Maghreb region. What angers Algiers the most is for a third party to get involved in its less than satisfactory relations with Rabat; it always wants the two neighbors to be able to solve pending disputes without foreign mediation. It blames Rabat and its other partners for discussing these problems with the press. However, the absence of dialogue between it and Rabat through easy channels is unnatural. Perhaps the essence of the issue lay in the complications of the situation at hand, and that the region's partners are thinking about ways to encourage dialogue, while reality points to the impossibility of this without shock treatment, even if they will affect parties with a colonial past that they are supposed to have abandoned forever.
