This Much I believe, Morocco

When I wrote “Iran ‘Secondhand Network In Morocco,” I commended the government’s response to an outside threat. Some misconstrued my statement as an expression of approval of the government’s overboard security measures against the Moroccan Shiite. I clearly stated in my article that I hoped the Moroccan government’s secret service had a comprehensively developed and well-balanced counterintelligence plan to address the issue. I agree with those who assessed Morocco’s current unfocused security operation against the Shiite as amateurish. It is most certainly conducive of grave human rights violations.

I stand against such actions.

According to multiple media reports, Moroccan and otherwise, the Shiite Moroccan citizens detained by the police were questioned on their association with Iranian officials/intelligence and involvement in proselytizing. I am not aware of any Moroccan being imprisoned solely for embracing the Shiite ideology. I do not, nor will I ever, condone police suppression of Moroccans solely based on their denomination, be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or any other religion or belief.

My assessment was not emotional, nor was it based on frivolous information. To me, having lived in the Middle East and studied Iran’s modern history for years, the Iranian intelligence threat to the unity of Morocco as a society is all too real. It strives on the complacency and generousness the Moroccan people are so famous for. Examples abound of how Iran drove a wedge between segments of societies in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and the Gulf countries. Iran’s intelligence modus operandi focuses on sectarian stigmatization and uses the Shiite population to foment discord within the permissive society that ensconces its sympathizers to influence the government’s decision-making process. Undoubtedly you would agree this is an apocalyptic scenario in Morocco where, if faced with a threat to its fundamental monarchic rule, the government will carry out an all-encompassing repressive campaign not just against the Shiite population, but all Moroccans. Should all Moroccans bear the brunt of the government’s wrath because a handful of Moroccan Shiite ideologists, unconcerned about the welfare of the majority and dissatisfied with Sunni doctrines, decided to sway the balance of power by aiding and abating a foreign intelligence service?

I think not.

It is a matter of national security and unity. The government has an obligation to protect the unity of Morocco from outside influences that bode ill. While I encourage action-driven political debates – a cornerstone to a democratic system, I decry those who abuse it and obtrude themselves on a people; while I denounce the government’s oppressive means in dealing with citizens opposing its policies, I strongly condemn those Moroccans who allow a foreign government with malign intent to inject sectarian divisiveness within our ranks as a society, to weaken the sacred and unifying fabric that makes up our Moroccan values, to compromise the integrity and security of our families. We may be inflicted with poverty and illiteracy; our politicians may be lacking integrity; our government may be insensitive to our pressing needs; we, nonetheless, should uphold our national unity and combat civil discord at all cost. I strongly believe that unchecked Iranian influences in Morocco will be prejudicial to the society. Whatever political, economic, and social divergence the opposition political parties or private citizens have with the government should be resolved in ways uninfluenced by outside pernicious entities.

This much I believe, and I stand by it.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

RAF Delegation At Luke

Furthering U.S. – Moroccan military cooperation, a delegation from the Royal Moroccan Air Force is touring Luke Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force’s only active-duty F-16 Fighting Falcon training wing. Located west of Phoenix, Arizona, the base is home to the 56^th Fighter Wing. It is the world’s largest fighter wing with 180 aircraft, 27 squadrons, four tenant units, and over 6000 civilian and military personnel.

Morocco, which will soon receive a squadron of F-16 from Lockheed Martin (read related story here), is building an air force base specifically designed to support F-16 operations. The Moroccan delegation, led by Colonel M’hamed Saufi, was welcomed by General Kurt F. Neubauer, Luke’s commanding general. Members of the delegation are receiving field instructions on the mission support and maintenance of F-16 and the organizational elements involved in the base operations of a fighter wing – civil engineers and fire department, communications, logistics readiness, security forces, and base services. The Moroccan delegation is also visiting 162^nd Fighter Wing, Arizona Air National Guard, where Moroccan F-16 combat pilots and crew chiefs receive training.

This is not the first time personnel from Luke Air Force Base interact with Moroccans. In May of 2007, thirty-seven members of Luke’s 944^th Medical Squadron visited Guelmim during the joint U.S. – Moroccan exercise known as African Lion. The medical team assisted over 3,746 patients in six different sites in the area of Guelmime in six days.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Iran ‘Secondhand Network In Morocco

Moroccan authorities are conducting an aggressive country-wide campaign against Shi’a ideology. Over the weekend, a number of individuals, all Moroccan citizens, suspected to be Shi’a adherents have been arrested and “soft” interrogated; their homes were searched and documents believed to be Shi’a propaganda were confiscated. The authorities are trying to determine if these individuals have affiliations with the Iranian intelligence security elements.

Morocco’s Investigations should cover those who had known associations with Saddam’s Iraqi Intelligence Services (IIS) as well. Much like Baghdad’s museums in the power vacuum that resulted from the U.S. invasion in 2003, media sources reported that Iraqi Mukhabarat offices were looted; large quantities of documents went missing from the IIS Special Operations (14^th) Directorate in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. It is believed that Iranian intelligence operatives were able to whisk the documents into Iran. The intelligence documents consisted of reports on and from sources of the IIS in Arab countries. I am speculating that Iran is blackmailing those sources and using them to fulfill its own agenda. The use by the Iranian intelligence of the Iraqi school in Rabat as a shiite propaganda platform indicates how far reaching their operations are.

The Moroccan government’s actions to counter the dissentious Iranian threat are commendable. I hope the Moroccan internal security service has a proactive counterintelligence plan to address the issue that is not limited to reactive and cursory investigations.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

Countering The Iranian Threat

The recent political rift between Morocco and Iran was long overdue. Morocco ‘stand, far from being reactive, is deliberate and pragmatic. It was based on clear indicators as to Iran’s malign intent vis-à-vis Morocco. Unlike other Arab nations, especially Middle Eastern ones which, by virtue of their geographic proximity to Iran, are compelled to deal with it, Morocco can afford to forgo relations with the Islamic republic. This is not the first time the two countries have an axe to grind with each other; in 1981, Tehran ceased its diplomatic relations with Rabat for hosting the deposed Iranian shah. It took a decade for relations to thaw.

The past few years saw an expansion in economic cooperation between the two countries; Morocco’s strategic geographic location provided Iran with a launching pad to European markets; still, trade between Morocco and Iran did not surpass $20 million; chump change in both countries’ international trade revenues.

Some Analysts speculated that Morocco severed its diplomatic relations with Iran in response to the latter’s irredentist claim against its neighbor Bahrain. The Moroccan government did send a missive to Bahrain reemphasizing its solidarity with the government of King Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa. The move angered Tehran which summoned the Moroccan chargé d’affaire to forcefully express its disapprobation.

Other analysts contend that Morocco is being used as a proxy by Saudi Arabia and other Arab Sunni Gulf countries to weaken Iran’s influence in Arab countries. Saudi Arabia has been competing with Iran for strategic leadership in the Gulf. Adherents to the Shiite ideology in Saudi Arabia constitute 20 per cent of the population and are a powerful influencing element for Iran. In February 2009, thousands of Saudi Shiites protested what they labeled discriminatory and anti-Shiite actions by the Saudi government. Such demonstrations were unprecedented in the Saudi kingdom. Saudi intelligence believes the demonstrations were fomented by Iran.

Morocco’s foreign minister, Taib Fassi Fihri, presented yet another explanation to Morocco’s cessation of its diplomatic relations with Iran. He stated that Iranian officials and their missionaries have been actively proselytizing in Morocco using cultural activities as a cover. Their campaign to spread the Shiite ideology reached beyond Morocco’s borders to target Moroccan immigrants in Europe. Morocco considers such activities undermining to its religious fundamentals and interfering with its internal affairs. Iranian foreign minister Monouchehr Mottaki denied the accusation and called Morocco’s reaction a setback to Muslim unity and erosive to Palestinian support.

Taib Fassi Fihri ‘statement is euphemism for what Moroccan intelligence services labeled Iran’s offensive counterintelligence and Human intelligence operations to recruit sources and establish a clandestine operating base to advance its agenda in the region by threatening and intimidating the Moroccan government.

Iran’s hegemonic ambition has been robust since the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the ascendancy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in December 1979. Undeniably, the new theocratic government was supported by millions of disgruntled Iranians who regarded the Shah as a pampered puppet of the United States. Because of its radical ideology that called – and to a certain extent still does – for the overthrow of capitalism and American influence in the Middle East, Khomeiny’s regime found his oil and gas rich neighbors rather apprehensive. The fledgeling Shiite fundamentalist government engaged in aggressive intelligence operations in the Gulf countries; it was driven by a single requirement: survival. Saddam’s war against Iran was largely financed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The United States provided tremendous logistical and intelligence support. The strategic aim was to deflect Iran’s exporting of its ideology to neighboring countries and to deplete its economic and military resources, thus making it less of an influence on the balance of power not just in the region, but worldwide. The Middle Eastern countries rely heavily on U.S. support to keep Iran at bay. U.S. Navy’s 5^th Fleet in Bahrain, CENTCOM’s prepositioning bases in Qatar, and USAFCENT’s bases in Oman and United Arab Emirates constitute a powerful deterrent to Iran’s regional political and military ambitions.

Iran’s foreign agenda has weakened its economy; inflation exceeds twenty-five percent; forty percent of Iranians under thirty years of age are unemployed; the country imports forty percent of it domestic oil consumption; the business sector is heavily subsidized. Despite its current social and economic woes, Iran remains a serious contender in the international scene. So much so that The U.S. is now realizing that peace in Iraq will not be achieved without the active cooperation of Iran. Iranian influence on the dynamics of Iraqi politics is such that most Iraqi powerbrokers are believed to be on the payroll of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). In April, 2003, when U.S. forces entered Iraq, Iran had an established sprawling network of intelligence agents and thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) operatives standing by to unleash havoc across Iraq by training, advising, supplying, and directing Shiite groups. The tactical sophistication of Iraqi Shiite led insurgency operations and the advanced and effective weaponry they used, such as the devastating Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP) and the Misagh-1 MANPADS, were trademarked in Iran. Iran’s covert operations in Iraq were not intended solely against the United States; they conducted countless assassinations and bombings against Iraqi political groups they deemed unresponsive to their scheme. In southern Lebanon and Palestine, Hezbollah and Hamas surged as a resistance force to reckon with. Their armed wings, the Islamic Resistance and Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, have been trained and equipped by IRGC-QF and their political leaderships mostly advised and financed by the MOIS. They drive a wedge in the region’s political mosaic and blatantly echo Iran’s political rhetoric and advocate its agenda. The potency of Iran’s radicalism and subversiveness became undisputable during the July 2006 war and the January 2009 Israeli attacks on Hamas.

Iran’s recent assertive PR campaign against Israel propelled it as a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause in the Arab street. The Arab governments’ abject failure to adequately address Israel’s murderous attacks against Gaza boosted Iran’s popularity not only among Shiite Arabs, but Sunni ones as well. To maximize on its popularity and the anti-Israeli sentiment permeating the Arab and Muslim world, Iranian diplomatic missions stepped-up their activities in Arab countries, including Morocco. Using Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza as templates, the Iranian mission in Morocco uses proxies to provide social services, operate regular schools, hawzas, and hospitals, and provide financial assistance to small businesses and farmers. It establishes Iranian financial institutions claiming to enhance trade between the two countries. It provides Arab youths academic opportunities in Iranian universities. In fact, the Iranian social, educational, and financial programs are far from being philanthropic. They are covers for a well structured counterintelligence human intelligence operational cycle Iran has tested time and again in many other countries. It uses them to imbue the population with its brand of insurrectionist Shiite ideology; once the population is indoctrinated, Iran establishes operating bases that will provide safe houses, training camps, weapons, transportation, and finances; it creates front companies and associations; it starts spotting and assessing for sources in key official position and political parties to influence the government’s decision-making process. Once it takes hold, it would be difficult to deter Iranian influence and stop its meddling in Moroccan politics. A hezbollah or Hamas-like organization inside Morocco would be a deleterious threat to Moroccan sovereignty and divisive to its social fabric.

Albeit necessary, Morocco’s uncompromising strategy in countering the Iranian threat to Morocco’s national unity might backfire by pushing Iranian operatives and their Moroccan backers underground making them far more challenging to expose and neutralize. Iranian intelligence could also redirect its support to Polisario and work in concert with the group to weaken Morocco’s territorial integrity.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

AFRICOM: Plowing Ahead

Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward appeared before the Armed Services Committee March 18, 2009 to discuss AFRICOM’s challenges in promoting stability and security in Africa. AFRICOM’s efforts are driven by national level requirements with an endstate to degrade and eliminate transnational and local security threats – Islamic extremism – and minimize Chinese, Russian, and Iranian influences in the continent. The acomplishment of its mission depends on enhancing the capabilities of African nations and increasing their dependence on U.S. military hardware and systems, operational advisory, and intelligence sharing through military-to-military engagements, US sponsored civilian programs, and clandestine anti-terrorism operations.

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AR), a member of the committee, inquired about the role of AFRICOM in the enduring conflicts in Africa, specifically the Ethiopian/Eritrean border conflict and the dispute between Morocco and Polisario. Gen. Ward tap danced in such an expert fashion the late Gregory Hines would have been proud.

Gen. Ward: As it comes to the role that we play, the command, the military role, you know, where there are political agreements that talk to, one, creating stability, that talk to, two, the need to create a force, a security force, that would in fact help the legitimate government of a nation provide that control or that stability, where there is a lack of training, a lack of equipment, a lack of interoperability, a lack of working effectively to some degree with its neighbors where, again, there is the political will to do so, and the determination is made that we in fact can play a role in increasing the capacity to address those deficiencies, that’s where we as a command, a military command, come in to take a role, to increase the capacity of those nations to do such.

Morocco hardly considers Polisario a “neighbor.” It is worth noting here that the US government does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over what it terms “Western Sahara.” AFRICOM’s perspective becomes more evidently discordant when we know that U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Africa (MARFORAF) annually conducts a bi-lateral exercise – AFRICAN LION – with the Moroccan military in southern Morocco.

According to news reports, the U.S. and Morocco were discussing the establishment of an AFRICOM base in southern Morocco. Both AFRICOM and Morocco deny such discussions ever took place. During his testimony, Gen Ward revisited the issue stating that AFRICOM headquarters will remain in Stuttgart, Germany until 2014. Its current location provides the stability and focus necessary to develop its standard operating procedures (SOPs), doctrines, and directives, expand its operations in the continent, refine its posture, and strengthen its relationship with its African partners. In the meanwhile, its operations are supported by forward operational sites such as Ascension Island, 1000 miles west of Africa and Camp Lemonier in Djibouti; Several other sites such as EUCOM’s Army Southern European Task Force in nearby Vicenza, Italy, CENTCOM’s prepositioning bases in Qatar, and NAVCENT’s 5th fleet in Bahrain provide logistical support.

CIMIC procedures course in Agadir, Morocco

AFRICOM’s Foreign Military Financing program spent $18.7 million in fiscal year 2008. A large chunk of it, according to Gen. Ward, went to Tunisia and Morocco. The program’s strategic goal is to increase the interoperability between the U.S. and these countries’ hardware systems and enhance asset capabilities in bi-lateral operations. Other AFRICOM programs Morocco will stand to benefit from in 2009 is PHOENIX EXPRESS, a naval exercise spearheaded by U.S. Naval Forces, Africa (NAVAF) and involving not just African navies, but European ones as well. Morocco’s participation in the program will improve its maritime interdiction capabilities and, hopefully, allow it to cauterize the worsening hemorrhaging of illegal immigrants and drugs from Morocco’s northern shores.

A major divergence in AFRICOM’s mission, in my opinion, is its insistence to support established governments in sustaining political stability whilst advocating democracy. There is a consensus among observers of Africa ‘strategic affairs that the majority of African governments have not been empowered by a popular support. The elections most African governments organize and AFRICOM vaunts before congress and through its Operation Objective Voice (OOV) are spurious.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

For Life Alone

There are snippets of conversations that cling to your memory insusceptible to the effacing effect of time. I will never forget one such a conversation I had with some American friends twenty years ago. We were having dinner and talking about Morocco when one of them asked: “are people in Morocco still living in caves?” I took umbrage at what I perceived as his supercilious and downright racist attitude. I snapped back explaining that we live in houses, wear clothes, drive cars, watch television, go to schools much like Americans do. My anger must have seeped through my face and vibrated through my voice; the subject was quickly dropped.

It’s only a few years ago that I discovered that indeed, twenty years ago, whole families in Morocco lived in caves; today, many more still do. It’s a reality most Moroccan city dwellers were unaware of. It is an aspect of our country our political leadership and officials never mentioned in their florid speeches and our news media never depicted in their self-serving articles and television programs.

Recently, grim images of poverty akin to the middle ages flashed on the screens of our national television and the pages of our written media. Such unusually unreserved veraciousness is induced not by the establishment’s belief the citizens have an indubitable right to the information; the investigative reporting of foreign news outlets combined with the government’s failed attempts to restrict satellite television and the internet – Morocco is a signatory of the Arab Satellite Broadcasting Charter – and the Moroccans’ voracious curiosity to learn about their country forced the release of information that was previously buttered in exclusivity.

In today’s dynamic geopolitical and global environment where poverty is considered a bearing ground for religious extremism, terrorism, prostitution, and drug trafficking, the government has discovered that the disclosure of Morocco’s “old poverty” generates unforeseen funds from wary Western intelligence agencies concerned that throngs of poverty-stricken Moroccans would march into their cities strapped in suicide vests. So far, Morocco has received over four billion dirhams in European subsidies. This year, additional European Union investments will aim at healthcare and education reform, water system purification, and transportation in rural areas. These projects will have extensive European oversight to ensure their successful achievement.

However, uncovering such realities outside of ordained channels throws government officials into a tizzy. The antiquated and backward looking political mentality of the Moroccan government sees such a pandemic reality as undermining to their “democratization and developmental” agenda. It castigates private citizens and Moroccan human right associations for criticizing its discrepant rhetoric, but it has no compunction justifying its profligate spending in ostentatious projects such as a twenty kilometers long tramway network in Rabat and a twenty-eight kilometers long one in Casablanca as necessary. This is while citizens outside Rabat and Casablanca, lacking the most basic services, are dying; services the government is obligated to provide, but fails to do so.

One has to wonder how such a cradle of civilization from which the Moors launched into Visigothic Hispania in 711 CE, thus introducing a Medieval Europe to science, medicine, philosophy, and literature, failed to retain some of that enlightenment and prosperity. One has to wonder why modernity – not civilization – founders once it transcends city limits.

While frolicking tourists sunbathe on beaches and dine in swanky resorts, while a few thousand elite Moroccans are living high on the hog, millions of malnourished, destitute, and sallow Moroccans in remote rural areas scratch the dirt for survival and take shelter in dwellings so sparsely furnished and poorly built that they look like caves. In this post-apocalyptic diorama, they sleep swallowed in whatever clothes and blankets they own to avoid freezing to death; they cook in tin cans; their women bleed to death giving birth; their children die of diseases the modern world thought eradicated; their men are despondent; weather permitting, they trek over xeric dirt roads and down jarring mountain slopes for countless hours and miles to reach a paved road. They share this country with us, but they live a different reality. The only sign of a government they see in their regions is a tattered flag whipped by the wind; the last time they saw a qaid must have been when the government was collecting “voluntary” donations for the eponymous Hassan II mosque.

The question is still ringing in my ears like a bad case of tinnitus. But at least now I have an answer.

Yes! Much like troglodytes, we are still living in caves.

But let us not succumb into hopelessness. All is not lost. The anti-poverty national Initiative for Human Development (INDH), a large-scale development project launched in May 18, 2005 and designed to provide the basic infrastructure to millions of Moroccans to alleviate poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion in response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is already bearing fruit. The poverty rate is nose-diving like a famished Jaeger. People are getting richer by the minute. And by people I mean Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi, High Commissioner for Planning Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, Minister of Social Development Nouzha Skelli, and their ilk. If you haven’t seen anything from INDH yet, do not worry. They will soon send you an email with a claimant number for your jackpot, your ticket out of poverty. It might take a while for them to get to you; INDH is giving each and every Moroccan the individual attention they deserve no matter how far-flung your cave may be.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009

The Lingering Legacy Of Hassan II

When diluvial rains and heavy snows battered most of Morocco for weeks, the howling winds blew the cover on the fraudulent activities of government officials. Their nostrums dissolved transforming the already dreary and treacherous landscapes of rural Morocco into a death trap for many. While our politicians warmly spent quality time with their families in swanky homes surrounded by manicured front lawns and blossoming roses, Moroccans were treading water and trudging through mud to survive the collapse of their abodes. Government officials tracked the catastrophe with the nonchalance of a cracked up whore at the end of her busy night. It took the King ruining his $1,500.00 custom made Roberto Cavalli designer shoes and conducting a sudden visit to Ain Tawajtat near Fez to snap government officials out of their unwholesome inertia. It is one more indication that sustains the analysis there are two political mindsets operating in Morocco today.

King Mohammed VI, regarded as the poor people’s monarch, aspires to modernize and democratize Morocco. Since he ascended to the throne in July of 1999, he has been an energetic advocate of social and political reforms that paint Morocco as a progressive and secular Muslim country more mindful of human rights and tolerant of political dissent. Such an outlook puts him in a stark contrast with the modus operandi of his late father, Hassan II, whose 38 years-long autocratic style stifled opposition and widened the chasm between the government and the citizenry.

Despite the King ‘spirited efforts, the changes have been emerging at a snail’s pace; degenerating social services, spiraling unemployment rates, and growing illiteracy numbers remain intractable problems. The worsening poverty, represented by sprawling squalid and vermin infested shantytowns in the outskirts of all Moroccan cities, unschooled teenagers high on solvents marauding the streets for an opportune hustle, and beggars with toddlers in tow rapid firing a litany of complaints at passersby their extended arms soliciting alms, has been in recent years a fertile recruiting environment for radical Islamic groups; Official Islamic political parties, supported by a large segment of the population, surged as a force to reckon with in the Parliament.

The King’s democratization agenda comes with one self-evident provision; dissolving the legislature and dismissing the government remains his unadulterated authority. The preservation of the monarchy as an ineluctable ruling platform in Morocco is a top priority. In that, he is assisted by the secret services of foreign governments such the United States and France. Since 1956, the monarchy has been equated to stability by foreign governments having a vested interest in Morocco ‘strategic role in the region.

Despite the fact that King Mohammed VI has placed young reform-minded technocrats within the current government, the majority of government officials are party to an entrenched and nepotic old guard led by the Prime Minister, Mr. Abbas El Fassi. The opaque and graft-ridden government is a perennial thread extending the deeply ingrained political intolerance that characterized the reign of Hassan II. It maintains, if not widens, the extensive divide between it and the grass roots. Its old-timers claim to have snatched Morocco’s independence from France while in fact they were relishing the comforts of French schools and returned just in time to fill key government positions in the late fifties and early sixties. While over fifty percent of the Moroccan population is under twenty-five years of age, illiterate and unemployed, the elite’s children are receiving the best education American and European schools could offer, putting them on the right track to take over Morocco’s affairs for generations to come. The old guard consorts with prominent Moroccan businessmen to exert a monopolistic domination not only on the Moroccan economy, but the political decision-making process as well. While democracy is widely viewed as integral to the Moroccan political landscape of Rabat and other large cities today, it remains mostly theoretical in most of the country, especially rural areas where tradition is deeply rooted, access to advocacy groups is restricted, and international oversight is non-existent. Those who complain are stigmatized and even persecuted. Such an environment did much to exacerbate the political and economic quandary in which Moroccans are mired; the government has unabashedly forsaken the common man, and the common man, for self-preservation, has resorted to corruption, drug cropping, prostitution, and illegal immigration. The old guard’s lack of accountability is flagrant and unchecked – unless the king intervenes that is.

The people’s access to the king is tightly controlled by the old guard, but the king’s access to the people is unhindered. Often, unannounced, Mohammed VI would visit a commune. Such visits would offer a glimpse at how government officials isolate and intimidate the citizenry while plundering the country’s riches. Schools are not being constructed; roads are not being paved; basic services are not being provided. Such royal visits to destitute locations of the kingdom leave the government scampering around like frightened chickens. The king’s micromanagement of some projects results in a rapid governmental response, and as if by magic, an improved work ethics.

It was indeed a gracious gesture for Mohammed VI to step into the mud and stand, albeit for a brief moment, where his homeless, sodden, and freezing citizens slosh on a daily basis. I am afraid the glimmer of hope his visit ignited into the hearts of his servants disappeared the moment he left them in the hands of his government officials.

A. T. B. Copyright © 2009