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John Bolton: Biden Must Reverse Course on Western Sahara
Elephants in the Room: Biden Must Reverse Course on Western Sahara
By John Bolton | December 15, 2020
Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty dangerously undermines decades of carefully crafted U.S. policy.
Outgoing President Donald Trump’s Dec. 11 proclamation that the United States would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara marked yet another low for his administration. In an unrelated deal to facilitate the exchange of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco, Trump’s decision to throw the Sahrawi people under the bus ditches three decades of U.S. support for their self-determination via a referendum of the Sahrawi people on the territory’s future status.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe was exactly right when he said in a Senate floor speech on Dec. 10 that Trump “could have made this deal without trading away the rights of this voiceless people.” Inhofe is one of the few U.S. experts on Western Sahara, built up through years of service on both the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services, which he now chairs. I have worked frequently with Inhofe on the Western Sahara issue over the years, dating back to my own initial involvement as assistant secretary of state for international organizations during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Warm but unofficial relations between Israel and Morocco are nothing new. Morocco has long considered recognizing Israel, and King Hassan II aggressively pursued that option during the 1990s, as did other Arab nations. Secret Israeli-Moroccan contacts have been commonplace since. Today, full relations are thus neither new nor difficult to achieve. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recently taken the plunge, and more could follow. But what Morocco has actually agreed to remains unclear; Rabat denies it will open anything more than a “liaison office” in Israel (which it did in the 1990s), or that its deal actually involves full diplomatic relations.
In making his rash decision, Trump consulted neither the Polisario Front—which has long represented the Sahrawis—nor Algeria and Mauritania, the most concerned neighboring countries, nor anyone else. This is what happens when dilettantes handle U.S. diplomacy, and it is sadly typical of Trump’s nakedly transactional approach during his tenure. To him, everything is a potential deal, viewed in very narrow terms through the attention span of a fruit fly. Fully weighing all the merits and equities involved in complex international scenarios is not his style. Historical background and future ramifications? Those are for losers. Fortunately, Trump made no nuclear deal with North Korea or Iran; one can only imagine what he might have given away.
His casual approach to notching one more ostensible international victory raises significant problems of stability across the Maghreb. And crossing Inhofe, reelected last month to another six-year Senate term, was a major political mistake. Trump knows exactly how Inhofe feels about the Western Sahara; I was there in the Oval Office on May 1, 2019, when the Oklahoma senator explained his support for a referendum. Trump said he had never heard of Western Sahara, and Inhofe replied, “Oh, we spoke before, but you weren’t listening.”
The Washington Post reports that in recent weeks, Trump became irate that Inhofe would not accede to nongermane amendments that the president wanted in the annual defense authorization bill, such as repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media platforms from liability for what they publish. Trump’s advisors reportedly persuaded the president to stiff Inhofe on the Western Sahara in retaliation. But this standoff is far from over. Inhofe is a determined Sahrawi proponent, and, from his powerful position as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he will make the argument to reverse Trump’s decision directly to Biden if need be.
Where, then, does Trump’s reckless and unnecessary move leave President-elect Joe Biden and the foreign governments most directly interested in the Western Sahara?
The answer begins with the obvious—the very name of the U.N. peacekeeping operation authorized by Resolution 690 of 1991 was “Mission of the United Nations for the Referendum in Western Sahara” (MINURSO being the Spanish acronym). When Spain’s colonial rule collapsed with Francisco Franco’s 1975 death, and after an initial conflict between Mauritania and Morocco, the Polisario-Moroccan military hostilities left the territory partitioned and its status unresolved. The Polisario’s fundamental choice in 1991 was to suspend its ongoing confrontation with Morocco in exchange for a referendum, in which the choice would be between independence or unification with Morocco.
King Hassan II fully understood that this deal was, in Resolution 690’s express terms, “a referendum for self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.” The choice, stated in the first paragraph of the U.N. Secretary General’s report approved by Resolution 690, was “to choose between independence and integration with Morocco.” The 1997 Houston Accords, negotiated under James Baker’s auspices as the Secretary General’s personal envoy, reinforced that understanding. (At the time, I worked for Baker at the U.S. State Department, and I later assisted him in his work as the U.N. envoy.)
By John Bolton | December 15, 2020
Trump’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty dangerously undermines decades of carefully crafted U.S. policy.
Outgoing President Donald Trump’s Dec. 11 proclamation that the United States would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara marked yet another low for his administration. In an unrelated deal to facilitate the exchange of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco, Trump’s decision to throw the Sahrawi people under the bus ditches three decades of U.S. support for their self-determination via a referendum of the Sahrawi people on the territory’s future status.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe was exactly right when he said in a Senate floor speech on Dec. 10 that Trump “could have made this deal without trading away the rights of this voiceless people.” Inhofe is one of the few U.S. experts on Western Sahara, built up through years of service on both the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services, which he now chairs. I have worked frequently with Inhofe on the Western Sahara issue over the years, dating back to my own initial involvement as assistant secretary of state for international organizations during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Warm but unofficial relations between Israel and Morocco are nothing new. Morocco has long considered recognizing Israel, and King Hassan II aggressively pursued that option during the 1990s, as did other Arab nations. Secret Israeli-Moroccan contacts have been commonplace since. Today, full relations are thus neither new nor difficult to achieve. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have recently taken the plunge, and more could follow. But what Morocco has actually agreed to remains unclear; Rabat denies it will open anything more than a “liaison office” in Israel (which it did in the 1990s), or that its deal actually involves full diplomatic relations.
In making his rash decision, Trump consulted neither the Polisario Front—which has long represented the Sahrawis—nor Algeria and Mauritania, the most concerned neighboring countries, nor anyone else. This is what happens when dilettantes handle U.S. diplomacy, and it is sadly typical of Trump’s nakedly transactional approach during his tenure. To him, everything is a potential deal, viewed in very narrow terms through the attention span of a fruit fly. Fully weighing all the merits and equities involved in complex international scenarios is not his style. Historical background and future ramifications? Those are for losers. Fortunately, Trump made no nuclear deal with North Korea or Iran; one can only imagine what he might have given away.
His casual approach to notching one more ostensible international victory raises significant problems of stability across the Maghreb. And crossing Inhofe, reelected last month to another six-year Senate term, was a major political mistake. Trump knows exactly how Inhofe feels about the Western Sahara; I was there in the Oval Office on May 1, 2019, when the Oklahoma senator explained his support for a referendum. Trump said he had never heard of Western Sahara, and Inhofe replied, “Oh, we spoke before, but you weren’t listening.”
The Washington Post reports that in recent weeks, Trump became irate that Inhofe would not accede to nongermane amendments that the president wanted in the annual defense authorization bill, such as repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media platforms from liability for what they publish. Trump’s advisors reportedly persuaded the president to stiff Inhofe on the Western Sahara in retaliation. But this standoff is far from over. Inhofe is a determined Sahrawi proponent, and, from his powerful position as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he will make the argument to reverse Trump’s decision directly to Biden if need be.
Where, then, does Trump’s reckless and unnecessary move leave President-elect Joe Biden and the foreign governments most directly interested in the Western Sahara?
The answer begins with the obvious—the very name of the U.N. peacekeeping operation authorized by Resolution 690 of 1991 was “Mission of the United Nations for the Referendum in Western Sahara” (MINURSO being the Spanish acronym). When Spain’s colonial rule collapsed with Francisco Franco’s 1975 death, and after an initial conflict between Mauritania and Morocco, the Polisario-Moroccan military hostilities left the territory partitioned and its status unresolved. The Polisario’s fundamental choice in 1991 was to suspend its ongoing confrontation with Morocco in exchange for a referendum, in which the choice would be between independence or unification with Morocco.
King Hassan II fully understood that this deal was, in Resolution 690’s express terms, “a referendum for self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.” The choice, stated in the first paragraph of the U.N. Secretary General’s report approved by Resolution 690, was “to choose between independence and integration with Morocco.” The 1997 Houston Accords, negotiated under James Baker’s auspices as the Secretary General’s personal envoy, reinforced that understanding. (At the time, I worked for Baker at the U.S. State Department, and I later assisted him in his work as the U.N. envoy.)
donc que l'algérie soit crispée ou détendue je doute que les usa y prêtent attention, ils agissent en fonction de leurs intérêts et tant pis si ça froisse certains au passage
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