"Given the importance to the United States and its allies of a stable and secure Maghreb, the compromise of autonomy offered by Morocco -reasonably located between complete assimilation into the Kingdom and total independence- is the only realistic course." Pham underlined in an article published on Thursday in the American website, "World Defense Review."
"What is needed is not only recognition of the need to resolve this forgotten conflict once and for all, but also acknowledgement that any workable arrangement must be based on sober reality rather than flights of fancy as illusory as the desert mirages of the region," he said.
Pham considered that a settlement along the lines of Morocco's autonomy proposal "would offer real hope in strengthening political, economic, commercial, and counter-terrorism cooperation for the Maghreb and the Sahel."
The expert noted that an independent Sahara "would be an instantaneous failed state," and would be the poorest and the less economically viable region in the world.
Such an option, he said, is likely to fuel tensions between the Sahrawi population and tribes, stressing that sharp divisions "would certainly be heightened in an independent state with very limited resources."
These tensions, Pham added, would “create circumstances that are favorable to subversion and the activities of extremist groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and criminal organizations like drug and human trafficking cartels.”
The expert highlighted that the recent report drawn by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins University School, titled “Why the Maghreb Counts”, is not exaggerating when it speculates that the independence of the Sahara would be "another Somalia on the Atlantic coast of North Africa."
He also warned that “the territory would become an even greater source of conflict between the Maghrebi countries.”
For the sake of regional stability and development as well as the security and interests of the international community, the expert said, “the Sahara can no longer be a +forgotten conflict+ peripheral to world affairs.”
The USA, who has most significant stake “in countering extremism in this strategic region”, should use its influence to help move the dispute to a peaceful resolution along the lines of Morocco's proposal for autonomy, a generous solution founded on the principle of realism which alone assures its long-term sustainability, Pham said.
The expert, who is also Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, recalled that Morocco’s proposal to grant a large autonomy to its southern provinces “was well received around the world as a significant step forward.”
In this respect, he cited, notably the UN Security council which described as “serious and credible” Morocco’s efforts to find a lasting settlement to the Sahara issue, and the statements by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who hailed the autonomy proposal as a serious and credible basis for negotiation.
Pham also shed light on the letter, signed by 229 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, sent to President, Barack Obama urging support for the "ground-breaking" plan for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as "the only feasible option."
Source: MAP
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