What Algeria's comeback means for Malta

As US troops continue to be the target of civilian hostility in Iraq, and as the question of Palestine seems to be on the verge of a real breakthrough, it might seem odd to urge a turning of the head by 180 degrees: to Algeria.

Yet, Algeria's comeback to the international stage might affect Malta's Mediterranean policy much more directly than what is happening in the Middle East. The case of Algeria makes it more pressing for Malta to clear its bipartisan thinking on the meaning of its "non-alignment" for reasons that are independent of the EU or warship-repairing contracts.

Algeria's comeback is triangulated within the familiar combination of international oil interests, George W. Bush's "war on terrorism" and UN resolutions and initiatives.

The civil war in Algeria, which started in 1992, has been responsible for the country's foreign policy becoming muted for many years. Some years before that, during the Cold War, when the ruling regime's socialist credentials were flashed with more conviction, Algeria was a bastion of the political idea that the Third World should strike a path of its own, unaligned with either the US or the USSR.

Over the last few years, however, especially after 9/11, Algerian-US relations have improved considerably. Algeria is a poor country but with a large potential market. It also has significant hydrocarbon reserves - especially important to the US as it tries to make itself less dependent on Saudi Arabian oil and as it becomes apparent that the idea of Iraqi oil beginning to flow at the rate of five to six million barrels per day within five years is a fantasy.

Algeria is making the transition from non-aligned bastion to a preferred ally of the US in North Africa. In doing so, the regime is gaining an important ally in its own war against armed Islamic group.

It also improves its chances, though at this stage it is still a long shot, of obtaining a favourable resolution of the question of the Western Sahara - possibly a partition of the territory that would give Algeria access to ports on the Atlantic coast - to where it could transport its oil for export.

Algeria needs US help to pressure Morocco to recognise, in some way, the UN resolution that the Western Sahara has a right to self-determination. Currently, the US is facilitating Morocco's defiance.

How does the Algerian comeback and change in foreign policy affect Malta?

First, it indicates that yet another Mediterranean pillar of non-alignment has moved beyond that policy - after the former Yugoslavia and Egypt. As a movement, the non-aligned movement faded away some time ago. But a definitive turn in Algeria's foreign policy highlights Malta's lonely position in still discussing "non-alignment". The force of the term, such as it is, is weakened.

Second, with Algeria on friendly terms with the US, the political geography to the south of Malta also changes face. It means that Libya ends up being the only country with a potentially hostile relationship to the US (although the current foreign minister of Libya has repeatedly said that Libya wants friendship with the US).

Morocco is a western ally and wants to join the EU. Tunisia has a pragmatic foreign policy, oriented towards strengthening relations with the EU and the US; it has permitted the US navy to conduct even landing exercises on its coast.

As for Egypt, its relationship with the US can be prickly at times. President Hosni Mubarak tries to steer a course between non-dependence on US aid and trying nonetheless to attract it. However, the very nature of that balancing act itself indicates that Egypt is fundamentally a US ally.

The transformation of our immediate southern neighbourhood into a region made up of four countries (out of five) that have actively friendly relations with the US should change how Malta conceives its Mediterranean policy.

Regional "stability" - the magical term used by western investors looking for new markets - is not necessarily the same thing as the pro-active "peace" to which Malta is constitutionally committed. Stability can simply mean containment of disturbed societies; it might also be short-sighted, if economic stability is sought at the expense of ecological security.

However, a more US-friendly region to the south of us makes it more difficult for the political debate in Malta to continue to use terms like "bridge between north and south" and "non-alignment" - at least in the highly abstract ways in which they are currently used.