Politics & Power Quote by Donald Evans

Gratitude is the overt message here; leverage is the real payload. By leading with "At the very outset", Evans isn’t just being polite - he’s staking out the frame before anything else can complicate it. The sentence performs an immediate alliance ritual: America "appreciate[s]" Morocco’s "steadfast support", then upgrades that support into "leadership". That escalation matters. It flatters a partner into a higher-status role, which makes continued cooperation feel less like compliance and more like co-authorship.

The phrasing also carefully blurs audiences. Evans thanks "the people of Morocco" and then pivots to "the leadership of Morocco", wrapping state action in popular legitimacy. That’s a diplomatic two-for-one: reassure Moroccan officials that Washington sees them as indispensable, while signaling to Moroccan citizens that the relationship is grounded in mutual respect rather than transactional security deals.

Context does the heavy lifting. Coming out of the post-9/11 "war on terrorism" era, U.S. officials needed visible Muslim-majority allies to counter the perception of a civilizational clash and to secure practical cooperation: intelligence sharing, policing, financial surveillance, and regional access. Calling Morocco a leader helps the U.S. narrative too - if there are "leaders" inside the Muslim world aligned with Washington, the war can be cast as targeted and legitimate, not a blanket campaign.

It’s praise with an expectation embedded: steadfastness is not a one-time gift; it’s a standard to keep meeting.