A Wide Ocean, Difficult Days & Ties that Bind: Morocco-U.S. Relations 50 Years after JFK’s Assassination
November 21, 2013 6 min. read

On Friday, we will look back on the 50 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and how that tragic event in Dallas changed history. Also, on Friday, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI will pay a state visit to Washington, D.C. and meet with President Barack Obama to look forward at how both our nations […]

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Where’s a leader when you need one? In Morocco.
November 13, 2013 2 min. read

Check out this very insightful piece from Ahmed Charai on Huffington Post, “A Regal Response to an Undue Provocation.” Ahmed makes a very good point that what makes Morocco stand out in a region of instability is King Mohammed VI’s visionary leadership. (It goes to show what I have always believed that good leadership, an open […]

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Polisario Threatens its Way to Congress: There’s Something Wrong with this Picture
June 12, 2013 4 min. read

  A few weeks ago, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Morocco and the Polisario Front to “continue negotiations without preconditions and in good faith […] with a view to achieving a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution” to end the Western Sahara conflict.”  (The Polisario, a Cold War era separatist […]

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Lights, Camera, Distraction – Polisario U.N. Theatrics Prolong Humanitarian Drama
April 22, 2013 4 min. read

The U.N. Security Council is currently debating a draft resolution on whether or not to extend the peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara (MINURSO) ahead of the April 30, 2013 deadline. For more than 20 years, the U.N. Security Council has debated, then renewed the mandate of this U.N. body rather perfunctorily—needlessly prolonging a nearly […]

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Security in the Sahel: U.S. Partnerships Can Resolve Crisis
April 1, 2013 5 min. read

  As the Atlantic Community examines “What can the US do to promote security in the Sahel?” the discussion must focus on the importance of U.S. partnerships in the region. Too often, meaningful and successful U.S. intervention to address conflicts and threats to security is erroneously envisioned as a going-it-alone undertaking. It doesn’t have to […]

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Shades of Grey in U.S. Policy towards North Africa
February 4, 2013 6 min. read

“The United States is struggling to confront an uptick in threats from the world’s newest jihadist hot spot with limited intelligence and few partners to help as the Obama administration weighs how to keep Islamic extremists in North Africa from jeopardizing national security without launching war. We want to put up a map here and […]

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Ahead of the Arab Spring ‘Curve’ in Morocco
December 26, 2011 4 min. read

Morocco is often left out of the Arab Spring discussion by policymakers and the media, largely because the demonstrations in Morocco took place peacefully, there was no regime change and the reform process proceeded relatively swiftly and transparently. It is also due to the fact that Morocco wasn’t caught blind-sided by the push for change; […]

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Boko Haram: Today, Nigeria. Tomorrow….?
December 1, 2011 4 min. read

Today, the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence held a REALLY interesting hearing on Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based militant group—which they deem an “emerging threat to the U.S. homeland.” (Color me surprised… it is a rare occasion when US policymakers on the Hill focus on “emerging” threats instead of waiting until it’s […]

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One is the loneliest number . . .
April 5, 2011 2 min. read

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s reminded the world of the unchanged US support for Morocco’s “serious, realistic, and credible” compromise autonomy proposal to end the three-decades old Western Sahara conflict.  Days after, two more countries officially withdrew recognition and support of the “Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic” (SADR) “the pseudo country” run […]

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Policy, without works, is dead.
May 24, 2010 3 min. read

Sometimes, identifying, deciphering and tracking US foreign policy for a particular issue can be exercise in complexity, if not futility.  For example, what is the US position on the best way to resolve the Western Sahara conflict, arguably one of the biggest hurdles to progress and stability in North Africa?  Well, in an interview  last […]

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