In the obscure twists and turns of Moroccan intelligence, a new episode – pathetic as much as revealing – has been added to the long list of clumsy maneuvers by an institution more adept at political tinkering than enlightened strategy. The General Directorate of Studies and Documentation (DGED), visibly disoriented by the kingdom's repeated diplomatic failures on the Sahrawi issue, ventured to fabricate a supposed Syrian document. This document was meant to support the idea of a collusion between the Polisario Front and the Islamic Republic of Iran – a fanciful alliance, tailor-made to provoke international indignation.
But this attempt to associate the Sahrawi movement with Tehran or Hezbollah is nothing new. Morocco has been trying for years to portray the Polisario as an unsavory group, hoping to pass it off as a terrorist organization. This repetitive and desperate strategy of disinformation stems from a realization of impotence: Rabat is out of arguments in a conflict where international law is clear – it enshrines the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and recognizes the Polisario as their sole legitimate representative.
The crude falsification of this fake Syrian document cannot be isolated from this vast campaign of delegitimization. It is part of a broader influence operation aimed at manipulating international opinion. In this endeavor, certain channels have been activated: American and British senators have served as mouthpieces for a tailor-made publication, commissioned to Zineb Riboua – affiliated with the Hudson Institute – who engaged in a biased and false demonstration, claiming that the Polisario is a terrorist organization.
This laborious attempt to overturn the narrative, failing to alter reality, reflects less a desire to convince than the panic of a state in distress, ready for all intellectual contortions to disguise a colonization that does not speak its name. But the elegance of the fakes never withstands the rigor of the facts. And the world is beginning to notice.
The detail that betrays the artifice
The detail that betrays the artifice The subterfuge might have deceived the uninitiated. But a detail, seemingly minor, was enough to shatter the carefully woven lie: the use of... Arabic numerals. Not those used in the Arab world. No. The so-called 'Arabic' Western numerals that we use every day: 1, 2, 3, etc.
However, in Syria, as in most of the Mashreq, the numerals used in official documents are called Hindi (٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥…), familiar to any serious observer of the Arab world. This graphic dissonance not only betrays the dubious origin of the document but also the gross ignorance of those who conceived it. A schoolboy error, a fake that reeks of haste and panic.
The panic of a state in distress
The panic of a state in distress Why such haste? Why this feverish rush to produce a fake document to twist reality and impose a fabricated narrative? Because the Moroccan strategy, exhausted by years of diplomatic duplicity, is now faltering on its foundations. Internationally, Rabat can no longer rally the expected support. The African Union, for the most part, remains faithful to the fundamental principle of the right of peoples to self-determination and continues to support the Sahrawi cause. Many states in Latin America, Asia, and Africa maintain their recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). And in the streets of the world, civil society is waking up, increasingly outraged by the complicit silence surrounding human rights violations in the occupied territories.
Faced with this growing disapproval, Rabat seeks a dramatic effect. The media coup. Iran is waved as a threat, an axis Tindouf-Tehran is invented, in the hope of rallying Western powers around a supposed common enemy. Alliances are fantasized to divert attention, to mask a reality that no stratagem can longer veil.
But the truth does not care about theatrics. It does not need artifices. It remains, upright and naked, insensitive to maneuvers. This falsified document is not just a clumsy fake: it reflects a system at the end of its rope, a power mired in its contradictions, cornered by its own inability to offer a just and lawful solution.
Moroccan panic is also explained by a more recent development, far more embarrassing for Rabat: the American initiative to revive the political process around Western Sahara. Washington has demanded that Morocco finally detail its famous autonomy plan – and above all, make it compatible with international law. In other words, include the right for the Sahrawi people to choose independence. An intolerable demand for a regime that has always wanted to impose its grip without debate.
Thus, only one escape route is available: disqualify the Polisario, anathematize it, pass it off as a terrorist organization. This is the ultimate ploy to torpedo a political process that Morocco no longer controls. But by forcing the narrative too much, one ends up revealing one's own weakness. And in this frantic race to discredit, Rabat only hastens the failure of its own narrative.
A dangerous amateurism
A dangerous amateurism That the DGED stoops to this kind of act is already worrying. That it does so with such a degree of amateurism is tragic. For if Rabat's operatives are unable to distinguish the numerals used in Damascus from those in Casablanca, what can be said about the seriousness of their 'investigations'? What is their word worth in international forums? How can one give credit to an institution that, to discredit an adversary, relies on a Word file riddled with cultural errors?
The issue of the numerals would be just a comical detail if it did not reveal a deep contempt for collective intelligence, a grotesque underestimation of public opinion, and a manifest will to manipulate at all costs. But times are changing. Fakes no longer hold up to the discerning eye of observers. The world is no longer fooled.
And the DGED would do well to revise its work – and learn, in passing, which numerals are used in Damascus.
Thus the curtain falls on an episode revealing a strategy that collapses under the weight of its own artifices. In attempting to forge a fake Syrian document, the DGED has not only signed an act of manipulation: it has exposed, in broad daylight, the panic of a state that can no longer disguise the deadlock in which it has trapped itself. Far from strengthening its position, this crude attempt has only highlighted the exhaustion of a diplomacy based on denial, evasion, and falsification.
The use of fear, security agitation, and the Iranian bogeyman cannot suffice to erase the principles of international law that have guided, for decades, the struggle of the Sahrawi people for self-determination. Neither the falsified documents, nor the docile media channels, nor the biased reports commissioned from ideological offices can make this fact disappear: the time of pretense is coming to an end. And in the face of truth, even the best-crafted narratives eventually dissolve.
By Belgacem Merbah
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