42 Middle East & Africa The EconomistAugust 31st 2019
2 the Palestinian Islamist movement in
Gaza. Ties between them were cut off in the
early years of the Syrian uprising when Iran
backed Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which
was butchering Hamas’s Sunni coreligion-
ists. With the war in Syria all but over, nor-
mal service has been resumed. Iranian sup-
port for Hamas is reckoned to be as much as
$100m a year.
But the Iranian network may have be-
come overextended and easier for rival es-
pionage agencies to penetrate. Israel has
carried out hundreds of air strikes on Irani-
an targets in Syria. Senior Israeli officers
claim they have succeeded in preventing
Iran from establishing missile bases there.
Until recently Israel maintained a poli-
cy of “opaqueness” regarding its strikes
against Iranian targets. Mr Netanyahu,
however, has taken to extolling Israel’s in-
telligence-gathering and operational suc-
cesses in surprising detail, as well as open-
ly saying it carried out the latest air strike in
Syria. Some of his critics in Israel’s security
and political establishments are uncom-
fortable with this. They see a link between
his sudden transparency and Israel’s par-
liamentary election due on September 17th.
Mr Netanyahu is currently defence minis-
ter as well as prime minister; successful
strikes increase his popularity. His tactics
are also causing unease in Washington,
where sources in the Pentagon have briefed
the media that Israel is behind the explo-
sions in Iraq. The Americans fear this could
destabilise the Iraqi government.
Like Iran, Israel too may have over-
reached. The incident in Beirut is seen as a
breach of the unofficial “red lines” with
Hizbullah. Since the war of 2006, in which
the two sides fought each other to a stale-
mate while Israel destroyed much of Leba-
non’s civil infrastructure, they have not
carried out offensive operations against
each other on Lebanese territory. Hizbul-
lah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has publicly
warned Israel to “wait for our response
which may take place at any time on the
border and beyond the border”.
Such talk is usually cheap in the Middle
East, but Mr Nasrallah’s threats are taken
seriously. Israel has closed roads and air-
space on its northern border in anticipa-
tion of an attack. Still, neither side wants to
see a major escalation. Hizbullah is not just
an Iranian proxy but also a Lebanese politi-
cal party with a stake in maintaining calm.
Mr Netanyahu wants to preserve his tough
image, but is anxious not to upset Israeli
voters on the eve of elections.
With luck, such calculations will work
to contain a dramatic escalation of hostil-
ities. But the conflict between Israel and
Iran is widening. That is one more rea-
son—on top of the need to contain Iran’s
nuclear ambitions—to hope that there is
more to Mr Macron’s diplomatic efforts
than g7summit showmanship. 7A
country thatcould not get rid of its
ruler for 20 years seems unable to pick
a new one. By now, many Algerians thought
they would have a new president. After
months of protests brought down Presi-
dent Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April, an elec-
tion was set for July. That deadline came
and went, though, with no replacement in
sight. Demonstrators, angry about both
stalled politics and a stalling economy, still
take to the streets each week. The army,
which holds de facto power, tolerates
them. But nothing else has changed: the
status quo has prevailed through a long,
languid summer.
After giving Mr Bouteflika a final push,
the army set out to dismantle the power
base he built over the previous two de-
cades. Wealthy businessmen like Ali Had-
dad, who made a fortune from state con-
tracts, were carted off to jail. So were the
president’s brother, two former spy chiefs
and other powerful behind-the-scenes fig-
ures known as le pouvoir.
That was a good start. But the transition
to democracy has not gone much further.
The opposition feared that the election that
was supposed to have happened in July
would be rigged by the army. Almost no one
bothered to register, save for two unknown
candidates, one of them a veterinarian. A
six-member panel of academics and politi-cians was then set up by the interim presi-
dent, Abdelkader Bensalah (whose term ex-
pired in July). Tasked with writing a new
transition plan, they started by asking for
the release of jailed protesters, an end to
police violence and greater freedom for the
press and dissenters. The army chief, Ah-
med Gaid Salah, rejected their terms.
The Arab world is littered with failed
revolutions. Even where the army did side
with protesters, as in Egypt, it later turned
on them and violently restored autocratic
rule. That has not happened yet in Alge-
ria—a modest success, in the eyes of oppo-
sition activists. But the army is slowly
ratcheting up the pressure on its critics. It
continues to round them up on spurious
charges. Dozens have been arrested for
waving the Amazigh (or Berber) flag at de-
monstrations. Independent news websites
often find themselves blocked. The gov-
ernment briefly shut down YouTube in Au-
gust after a former defence minister re-
leased a video on the site urging soldiers to
oust General Salah.
One of the main complaints about Mr
Bouteflika’s long rule was a sluggish econ-
omy. Algeria is one of Africa’s largest oil
and gas producers, but corruption and in-
efficient subsidies have squandered much
of its wealth. Endless bureaucracy deterred
foreign investment. Young people make up
most of the population. One in four are job-
less. Low oil prices have pinched the bud-
get. Foreign reserves, though still a sizeable
$65bn, are barely a third of what they were
five years ago.
The current political turmoil is not
helping. The economy, which grew by a
modest 2.3% in 2018, will probably slow
down this year. Rounding up Mr Boute-
flika’s corrupt allies was the right thing to
do, but it also brought short-term pain. Fer-
tial, a fertiliser company linked to Mr Had-
dad, is struggling to pay wages. Sonatrach,
a state energy giant, had been in talks with
foreign oil majors to attract new invest-
ment. With the government unable to pass
a necessary energy law, though, those talks
are on hold.
Algeria has not seen the kind of vio-
lence that followed Sudan’s recent upris-
ing, to say nothing of the horrors in Libya
or Syria. But it looks stuck at a difficult im-
passe. The opposition wants a freely elect-
ed government that does not include the
army. The army, which long feared that Mr
Bouteflika was trying to sideline it, has
power again and does not wish to relin-
quish it.
General Salah occasionally slips into
the familiar language of autocrats, slander-
ing the opposition as “traitors” bent on un-
dermining the state. The latter part is true:
Algerians want to tear down a repressive
state that failed to govern well for decades.
The general can either go along with them,
or go the way of other strongmen. 7CAIRO
The army and the people continue to
face off in AlgeriaAlgeriaDemocracy delayed
Still shouting