Yonah Alexander Ain’t No Dove on the Western Sahara

Yonah, in case you were wondering about the title, means “dove” in Hebrew. Which is ironic because Yonah Alexander’s 3-year crusade to pin all the ills of the Maghreb on the Polisario Front and to legitimize Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Westen Sahara has as far as I can see only one predictable outcome, which is increased violence, continued instability, and further disunity. His advice to US policymakers – from his four reports on terrorism in the Maghreb/Sahel (1,2,3,4) – boils down to a total acceptance of the Moroccan expansionist agenda, specifically legitimizing Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and closing the Tindouf refugee camps.

A good place to start in understanding how this long-time terrorism expert arrives at such legalistically challenged, ethically bankrupt, and  strategically counterproductive conclusions is to take a look at the extent to which he has been, for several years now, in bed with the American Morocco lobby. A few examples jumped out at me in my recent research into the Morocco lobby:

In my last post, I wrote about how repugnant I find it that Alexander appears as an expert source on the website of the thoroughly biased and compromised Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP), Rabat’s lobbying outfit in Washington. Alongside the greatest stars of the Morocco lobby -- Holley, Gabriel, and Abinader – it’s hard not to see a lot of guilt by association there.

In earlier readings of Why the Maghreb Matters, Alexander’s original pro-Morocco anti-Polisario diatribe, I hadn’t noticed, among the numerous luminaries listed as project participants, the mention of Marney Cheek, a partner at the prestigious Washington law firm Covington & Burling, under “staff.” Of all the fine law firms in DC, it is interesting that Alexander should choose a lawyer from Covington & Burling, which “has for a number of years been representing the Moroccan state phosphate company that carries out phosphate exploitation in occupied Western Sahara.” Western Sahara Resource Watch has written extensively about C & B’s secretive and unsavory lobbying efforts to run interference for Morocco’s illegal theft of the natural resources of an occupied territory without the consent of the inhabitants.

Then for the first yearly update of Why the Maghreb Matters in 2010, who does Alexander take on to prepare his Chronology of Maghreb and Sahel Terrorism since 9/11 but Caitlin Dearing, Manager of Research and Special Projects at the MACP. This is the same Caitlin Dearing that was Principal Author of a September 2009 study titled Group Rights and International Law: A Case Study on the Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria, a project co-sponsored by the MACP (Robert M. Holley, Executive Director, and Jean Abinader, Editor) and the Inter-University Center of Legal Studies (Yonah Alexander, Co-Director). Let me just say here that Ms Dearing chooses to ignore decades and volumes of international law that condemns Morocco for the Western Saharan refugee crisis and tries to pin it all on Algeria. To say she is a tainted researcher is an understatement.

Then in Alexander’s next update in 2011 he mentions that “according to open intelligence sources and a recent fact-finding trip to the region in January 2011, there exists growing evidence that AQIM, local traffickers, and possibly members of the Polisario are forming links with Latin American organized criminal groups for trafficking drugs and humans via transit network into Europe.” Moroccan news reports about this “fact-finding trip” place Alexander during January 2011 in Dakhla, Western Sahara, with “a US delegation including members of centers of research and studies on security issues and international relations, based in Washington.” Jean Abinader of the Moroccan American Center is identified as one of the other members of the delegation. As to what they were doing there, the article reports that “The American delegation met with some people who have fled the Tindouf camps and returned to Morocco, and discussed the terrorist threat in the Sahel-Saharan zone and the involvement of members of the polisario in numerous illegal activities.” And while none of the reports specify who paid for or organized this nice little trip, I have my suspicions that Abinader did a lot of leading Alexander around by the nose.

My point here is that even a cursory look at Yonah Alexander’s recent history reveals a disturbing amount of collaboration and cooperation with the American Morocco lobby. On the Western Sahara issue, this pro-Moroccan alignment translates into anti-Polisario/anti-Western Sahara policy recommendations that, if implemented, would prove disastrous for the Western Sahara, Morocco, the Maghreb, and ultimately US interests. I repeat: “Yonah Alexander ain’t no dove.”

Not having any idea at all about Mr. Alexander’s ethnic background, I was perhaps presumptuous in using the Hebrew translation of Yonah/Jonah as a hook in this article. Wikipedia informs me of a couple other derivations of the name Yonah that might have been more appropriate. Yonah, for example, means “bear “in Cherokee and “’right now’ in the sense of being hopeful” in the Oromo language in Ethiopia. Hmmmmm. Actually, the more I think about it, the Cherokee angle would have been a good hook, given the rather startling similarities between the atrocious treatment of the Cherokee nation at the hands of the US government and military in the 1830s and what Professor Alexander proposes to inflict on the Sahrawi nation today. Maybe for another post.       

The Moroccan American Center for Policy’s Rogues List

In my recent post about J. Peter Pham’s hypocrisy on the Western Sahara, I mention that he is prominently listed as an expert source on the Moroccan American Center for Policy’s website, Morocco on the Move.

I thought it might be illuminating to take a look at the whole list. Here it is:

Dr. J. Peter Pham, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center

Professor Yonah Alexander, Director of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies’ International Center for Terrorism Studies

Leila Hanafi, Staff Attorney and Programs Manager, The World Justice Project

Professor I. William Zartman, Professor Emeritus, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University

Professor Lahcen Haddad, Morocco Country Representative, Management Systems International

Ambassador Edward M. Gabriel (ret.), President, Moroccan American Center

Jean R. AbiNader, Executive Director of the Moroccan American Trade and Investment Center

Robert M. Holley, Executive Director, Moroccan American Center for Policy

Robert M. Holley, Jean R. Abinader, and Edward M. Gabriel are all listed in the latest data available online as foreign agents of Morocco under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) registration of the Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP). While I would never suggest that the $1,031,579.27 MACP received from the Moroccan government in the first half of 2011 would in any way cloud the judgment of or bias the analyses or opinions of these three experts, my close monitoring (1,2 & 3) of their statements and actions since they registered with FARA in 2004 strongly suggests they are factually challenged Moroccan stooges.

Professor Lahcen Haddad is listed here as “Morocco Country Representative, Management Systems International.” Perhaps MACP’s meager budget doesn’t include an IT person, but one would think that they might have changed this online bio to include his appointment on January 3 of this year as Minister of Tourism under the new Moroccan Head of Government Benkirane. Whatever, as a member of the Moroccan government he is undoubtedly part of the problem and not the solution on the Western Sahara issue. Furthermore, mention in his bio (for the Moroccan Tourism Administration) of previous employment with Kerr McGee – who for years colluded with Morocco’s illegal exploitation of the Western Sahara’s natural resources – hardly instills any confidence in this expert source.

I guess a cameo appearance by Professor I. William Zartman here could be expected. I have written extensively (1 & 2) of Professor Zartman’s pro-Moroccan views, his disdain for international law, and his recent attempts to justify forcing autonomy down the throats of the Western Saharans. Western Sahara historian, Jacob Mundy, says it best when he tells us that Zartman defends a solution [autonomy with Moroccan sovereignty] that his own theories [in the fields of conflict resolution and game theory] would reject.” As a recipient of the prestigious designation of Commander, Ouissam Alaouite, delivered by King Mohammed VI, I really wonder about the Professor’s objectivity.

Yonah Alexander’s appearance on the list also could be expected, given his series of reports on terrorism in the Maghreb and Sahel since 2009 which consistently ties the solution of the economic and security ills of the area to a settlement of the Western Saharan problem on Morocco’s terms. His most recent report’s suggestion to close the Tindouf camps and disperse the inhabitants is particularly preposterous. He represents a toxic strain of thought (shared by fellow terrorist experts and Morrocan royalist sycophants Yossef Bodansky and Claude Moniquet) that merges a pro-Israel worldview with pro-Moroccan sentiments with a total antipathy toward international law that arrives finally at an extreme hate of self-determination for the Western Sahara and extreme demonization of the Polisario Front. I have written before (not kindly) about Alexander’s first Potomac Institute Maghreb terrorism report (along with Zartman’s group at Johns Hopkins), Why the Maghreb Matters: Threats, Opportunities, & Options for Effective US Engagement in North Africa. Again, Jacob Mundy’s suspicions about the Potomac-SAIS report are I think right on:

The Potomac-SAIS ‘task force’ was likely an initiative organized by the Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP), a registered agent of the Kingdom of Morocco. Though MACP’s fingerprints are nowhere to be found in the report, it is an open secret in Washington that this project, culminating in the Potomac-SAIS report, has been in the works for several months. And little surprise, then, that the report’s recommendations attempt to equate US interests with those of the Moroccan Monarchy. Paying for policy is quite normal in Washington.

Having written two articles already about J. Peter Pham (1 & 2), I have probably already said enough. Let me just reiterate here that his ardent addlepated neoconservative defense of the greater Moroccan thesis is hardly convincing.

I really don’t have a clue how Leila Hanafi gets on this list. A Moroccan-American international lawyer recently out of college she is listed as a Staff Attorney and Programs Manager, The World Justice Project. She is also a Co-Editor/Legal Expert for Morocco World News , an American newsgroup on Morocco with strong editorial support for Rabat’s expansionist agenda, and regional coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. An online search for any basis for her designation as an expert source turned up next to nothing.

In recap, the expert source list for Morocco on the Move is made up of one member of the Moroccan government, three paid foreign agents/lobbyists of the Moroccan government, one American academic decorated by the Moroccan Government, one Zionist terrorism expert, one extreme neocon, and one complete neophyte. My main reason for looking at this list is to highlight the extent to which it is an extremely biased and untrustworthy group of Moroccan propagandists and apologists – especially on the Western Saharan issue.

Certainly, if you are looking only for the totally biased and slanted Moroccan royalist line on the Western Sahara, this group I guess works well enough. If, however, accuracy, truthfulness, international law, and balanced analysis are concerns, I suggest you go elsewhere. Professor Stephen Zunes at University of San Francisco and Professor Jacob Mundy at Colgate University, who recently co-authored the excellent Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, & Conflict Irresolution, are good places to start. Anna Theofilopoulou, who covered the Western Saharan crisis at the UN and worked closely with James A. Baker III during his stint as Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General on Western Sahara, is another recommended expert source.

The Chutzpah of J. Peter Pham & More Tales of Hypocrisy on the Western Sahara

Is there any limit to the chutzpah of J. Peter Pham? Recently he was quoted in an Associated Press article titled Senegal President Spends $200K To Lobby US -- about President Abdoulaye Wade’s contracting with a US lobbying group “to research and draft a ‘white paper’ showing that the 85-year-old was legally entitled to seek a third term in office, even though the Senegalese constitution was revised to impose a maximum of two.” Here is what Pham had to say:

"It saddens, but doesn't surprise me that it has come to this," said Peter Pham, the Africa director at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. "After more than a decade in office, Abdoulaye Wade is apparently so desperate to cling on to power that he has to hire a foreign law firm to conjure up legal 'facts' that the plain language and intent of the Senegalese constitution and the relevant amendment's legislative history would not otherwise support."

What I find so disturbing about Pham’s comments is his long history of making common cause with a whole host of Moroccan lobbyists and foreign agents who get paid far more than $200K by Mohammed VI to convince us that Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara is in fact legal. Just two of the many Moroccan lobbyists operating in Washington, the Gabriel Company and the Moroccan-American Center for Policy, reported receiving over a million dollars from the Moroccan government in the latest Foreign Agents Registration Act report available online (for the six months ending June 30, 2011). Most of this money goes directly towards sugarcoating Morocco’s trashing of legality in the Western Sahara for Congressional consumption.

Let me remind you that the plain language and intent of the 1975 International Court of Justice opinion on the Western Sahara, not to mention innumerable UN resolutions, unambiguously established the illegality of Morocco’s occupation. For the umpteenth time, I repeat the Court’s conclusion "that the materials and information presented to it do not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco....” Yet, despite the clarity of this opinion, Pham in his writings sees fit to conjure up all kinds of “facts” that the tribes of the Western Sahara owed allegiance to the Moroccan Sultan “from at least the Arab conquest of North Africa in the 7^th century C.E.” and that Morocco’s invasion was only a reassertion of that historical sovereignty. (see Western Sahara: Time to Move Ahead, Realistically, Why Morocco Must Stay, and Moroccan Exceptionalism?)

Within the context of the Senegal article, what is even more ironic and damning about Pham’s writings on Morocco and the Western Sahara is his referencing of paid stooges and agents of the Moroccan government to bolster his case – for instance former U.S. ambassador to Morocco and current Morocco lobbyist Edward Gabriel, and Claude Moniquet’s European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, which reportedly is a client of the Moroccan embassy in Brussels. Furthermore, Pham is prominently listed as an expert source on the new website (Morocco on the Move) of the Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP), Morocco’s factually challenged lobbying organization in the United States. Robert M. Holley, head of the MACP, has been for years Rabat’s liar for hire in Washington.

It saddens but doesn’t surprise me that Pham should be so critical of President Wade’s attempt to rewrite reality and distort legality with the help of paid lobbyists, while at the same time lauding and colluding with Mohammed VI’s longtime million-dollar lobbying efforts in Washington to do pretty much the same thing. Only difference I can see is that Wade is trying to illegally cling to power and Mo VI is trying illegally to cling to the Western Sahara. I say it doesn’t surprise me because Pham is the master of the double-standard. His recent championing of South Sudanese independence and simultaneous rejection of independence for the Western Sahara is a case in point. Pham’s selective application of the standards of legality and feasibility are completely incomprehensible, given the Western Sahara’s far better claims to self-determination (as an ex-colony) and successful statehood (note, for starters, its much higher developmental numbers for literacy, education. paved roads, etc. and lack of border and ethnic/tribal issues).

J. Peter Pham’s sadness at the lobbying shenanigans of President Wade of Senegal is pure unadulterated hypocrisy given his delight with the far worse shenanigans of the king of Morocco.