Arab Islamic Republic - Regional Context

Regional Context

The attempted merger between Tunisia and Libya took place in a historical and regional context. Maghrebi regional politics played a role embedded into the constitutions of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria is the ideal of Maghrebi unity, however contradicting this ideal is the competing interests of Morocco and Algeria, the region's two major powers. According to Tunisian scholar M. J. Deeb, "if there were only Algeria and not Morocco, or Morocco and not Algeria, there could never have been a Maghrib. The major power would have swallowed us all up. To have the Maghrib you need those two rival powers competing with each other in the region". Thus attempts at unification within the Maghrib were more often than not the means by which to counterbalance one or both of the region's major powers.

Additionally, Pan-Arabism has an impact on the politics of the Arab world. Muammar Gaddafi was a well-known proponent of Pan-Arabism and thus had worked to achieve union with several Arab states such as Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Tunisia. He also sought union with Chad. Thus, in a 1972 rally in Tunis, Gaddafi spoke of supporting a union between Libya and Tunisia. Hearing the speech by Gaddafi live at his home over the radio, President Bourguiba rushed to the rally where, after he let Gaddafi finish, he took to the stage and denounced the idea that "the Arabs had ever been united, dismissed all of ideas about rapid Arab unity, and even took the Libyans to task for what he described as their own lack of national unity and their backwardness". Close Libyan-Egyptian ties troubled Maghrebi leaders who feared the proximity of Egypt on their eastern borders and thus worked to pull Libya away from Egyptian influence. At the fourth annual Non-Aligned Movement conference in Algiers, Bourguiba called for the unification of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya to form a "United States of North Africa­", a move which he qualified by proposing it take place in stages over an "unspecified period of time".