The Game of Thrones in North Africa

[Valin]

Dispatches:

Michael J Totten

1/13/13

 

It feels strange visiting a country like Morocco and listening to people extol the virtues of a political system my country waged a revolution against. Morocco has a king, and he’s a real one too, not some kind of a figurehead. But I went there, I listened, and after almost ten years of visiting Middle Eastern countries wracked by tyranny, terrorism, botched revolutions, and wars, I was perhaps a bit more willing to hear what they had to say than I might have been a decade ago.

 

A monarchy is a tough sell for Americans. The founders of our country fought against that system of government with force of arms. The very idea of a king is offensive to most of us on some level. It’s in our cultural and political DNA.

 

Yet Morocco has been an American ally and friend since 1786. Our alliance is not a wafer thin transactional one like it is with Saudi Arabia. It’s real. Morocco is a major non-NATO ally. So from a strict national interest perspective, there’s nothing complicated about our friendship with Morocco.

 

(Snip)