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Using the expression “Step back” to describe the status of a regional dispute or conflict means dissatisfaction and disappointment. Christopher Ross, former personal envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General for Western Sahara (2009-2017), highlights this expression without even frowning. He uses it to comment on the latest developments regarding the Moroccan-Western Sahara. He would have been more inspired to use “Setback” as a means to express the disillusionment of people, including himself, who have been betting on an outcome detrimental to Morocco’s national interest.
Ross’s disillusionment and Morocco’s detractors’ obsession stem from the fact that they have concluded that the Machiavellian project, which they have supported behind the scenes for years to sever the southern provinces from the rest of the Moroccan national territory, has failed.
Ross published an article titled ‘A step Back for Western Sahara’ on the website of the International Center for Dialogue Initiative (ICDI), commenting on the 2797/2025 2797/2025, which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed on October 31, 2025, on the Western Sahara regional conflict. He reiterates his well-known position on the issue that no longer holds water.
Not wasting time, Ross fires his first bullet. He criticizes the United States’ position, which has recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the so-called Western Sahara since December 2020. At the time, he described this recognition as senseless and ill-considered, going against the right of people to self-determination. According to him, the United States, as the penholder of the resolutions on the Sahara, should stick to the duty of neutrality. He refrains from admitting that the adoption of Resolution 2797/2025 is about a setback, if not an earthquake, for Algeria and its supporters within the academic community and retired seasoned diplomats.
Resolution 2797/2025 leaves no room for dual interpretation
Ross picks up on Russia’s narrative that seized this opportunity to criticize the United States, accusing it of being willing to impose their own national agenda at the expense of ‘’international legality.’’ What a candid and naïve behavior, as if Russia and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) fifteen members were Samaritans and had no agendas in line with their national interests!
Undoubtedly, Ross has a bone to pick with Morocco. The latter was suspicious about his neutrality, particularly during 2012-2014. Morocco resisted when pressures were exerted on it to make huge concessions that would jeopardize its national interest. Ross wouldn’t mind remotely joining the self-determination and human rights chorus that the Kennedy Foundation for Justice and Human Rights was leading back then. Morocco lost faith in Ross precisely because he wasn’t neutral.
Ross got trapped in a hidden script that recalled past episodes of arguments that closed eyes on Algeria’s direct and steady involvement in the Sahara conflict. He works hard to give far-fetched legitimacy to the Polisario movement. He deliberately ignores other major components of the Sahrawi populations living in the southern provinces and other parts of Morocco.
In this respect, when Ross speaks about the United States’ partiality, he fails to convince seasoned diplomats and unbiased observers. Ross would have been well-advised not to accept being the UN Secretary General’s personal envoy in 2009. He had been the United States’ ambassador to Algeria in 1988. This wouldn’t rule out that he’d have nurtured deep sympathy toward Algeria’s narrative on the Western Sahara conflict.
To some extent, Ross reminds us of Benjamin Stora, the French historian, who stayed in Morocco with diplomatic status as part of an extended trip to Vietnam and Algeria from 1995 to 2002. Although he has been careful, his verdict on Morocco is a stereotype that refers to colonial military ethnology.
Stora publishes an interesting book titled «Algérie, Maroc, Histoires parallèles, destins croisés, 2002», where he couldn’t distance himself from being too close to Algeria’s narrative. Stora cannot be said to have been impartial, as he was born in Constantine in Algeria. His conclusions on Morocco left Moroccan historians speechless.
We can go even further and conclude that the selection of Ross and Stora to do the job they had been assigned to reflected the position of certain decision-making centers in the United States and France, which at the time were working tirelessly to prepare the ground for overturning the balance of power in North Africa to the detriment of Morocco.
Another analogy comes to mind in this regard, that is the behavior of John Bolton, former member of James Bakers’ team, personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara (1997-2004), former United States representative to the United Nations (2005-2006) and former National Security Adviser during Donald Trumps’s first term (2018-2019).
Bolton’s bias in favor of the Algerian thesis is crystal clear. His neoconservative agenda, more mercantile than ideological, would have led him to advise the American President to recognize the Polisario movement as a genuine entity and, later, as a state. This proved to be the height of ideological inconsistency and a distorted reading of the domestic political situation in the United States, as well as the new geopolitical change worldwide.
Bolton would not have learned the lesson the day after his resignation. He was extremely virulent toward President Donald Trump, mostly when the latter decided to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara region.
Let’s be more specific. Firstly, of all the personal envoys of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Sahara, only those of American nationality have shown an obsession with Morocco. Once they left their posts, these envoys showed a bias in favor of Morocco’s rivals.
They did so, while being aware that the United States never supported the idea of cutting Morocco off from its Saharan territory. The American decision-makers were aware of the ins and outs of the Saharan issue, and they played a crucial role during the 1960s-1970s to prevent Morocco and Algeria from waging a devastating war in North Africa.
These personal envoys perceived the failure of their mission, for which they hold Morocco responsible, as a personal failure; as a Moroccan plot against their integrity and their supposedly unbiased behavior. Otherwise, how would one explain the harsh and unprecedented remarks James Baker, John Bolton, and Christopher Ross made after the United States recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces in 2020?
The Habit doesn’t make the monk
Secondly, Christopher Ross did not prevent himself from attending a smear campaign against Morocco that South Africa and Algeria sponsored in a small room at the United Nations headquarters in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations Annual meeting.
His status, as a former personal envoy of the Secretary-General, would have advised him to stay away, at least for a reasonable period, and not to give his “Moroccan detractors” the opportunity to pin him down. On the contrary, his presence in the room confirmed Morocco’s suspicions regarding his bias when he was in charge of the Sahara issue.
Saying that, Ross deserves all respect as a seasoned diplomat, even though he got his wires crossed during his tenure from 2009 to 2017. However, let us assess what he proposed in his article for ICDI.
In his analysis of Resolution 2797/2025, Ross errs on the side of a pessimistic reading. He tries to make it seem like the tremor caused by the adoption of this resolution is not audible worldwide.
Ross mentions Algeria and Polisario as distinct entities. Yet, observers and experts familiar with North African affairs know that the latter is a remote geopolitical facility in Tinduf with no say with respect to the so-called Western Sahara. He rehearses outdated ideas highlighted in the Baker’s Plan II. Ideas were already buried after Morocco proposed the autonomy plan in 2007.
Ross wears the armband of hypothetical pragmatism. He resumes his narrative on the balance that must prevail in the resolutions on the Sahara issue since 2007. He closes his eyes to the fact that he did not do so when he was the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General. Back then, it was assumed that he might have used a couple of connections within the UN headquarters to promote, once again, the idea of partitioning the territory.
Ross still seems fooled by the post-Arab Spring saga. This chapter in the history of the Arab periphery, whose promoters aimed to reshape the geopolitical map of the Middle East and North Africa. These remote actors helped save a handful of regimes with ties to hydrocarbon-related decision-making centers on the global geostrategic chessboard. The move was meant to force Morocco to bend. They waved the card of human rights and the exploitation of resources in the so-called Western Sahara.
Ross had almost tricked John Kerry, then Secretary of State, into aligning the United States with the position of Morocco’s adversaries in 2013. He later ruled out this opinion by alleging that Morocco wanted to force him to give up his neutrality. Nonsense.
Without being unfair to Ross, one is tempted to assume that, at the bottom of his heart, he would like Staffan de Mistura to fail in his mission. He knows that the latter will stick to the spirit and letter of Resolution 2797/2025.
Something he, Ross, did not do during his tenure from 2009 to 2017. De Mistura will learn his lesson and will certainly not try to revive the idea of splitting the Sahara as he did last year. The UNSC will not allow him to, in any case.
Ross would have even misled Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, by making him talk about the disputed territory as an ‘’occupied’’ region. Ban Ki-moon’s V sign in Tinduf camps tarnished his neutrality and ignited the ire not only of Morocco but also of some UNSC permanent members.
Ross’s remarks during the round tables in Geneva, organized by his successor Horst Köhler (2018-2019), left no doubt that he was nostalgic for a return to the pre-2007 situation and for unearthing the essential part of the poisoned solution contained in the Baker II plan.
Ross’s three proposals at the end of his article are so banal that they dismiss his own argument. He announces ideas that turn out to be an open secret. Most experts on North African affairs, unless they are acting in bad faith, agree that the approach the UNSC adopted is innovative for the following reasons.
Resolution 2797/2025 aims to safeguard and ensure peace and stability in the Maghreb region. It identifies the parties to the conflict, including and especially Algeria. There was no better evidence than the plea of the permanent representative of Algeria after the above-mentioned resolution was passed.
This plea recalls the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door (1973): Mama, take this badge off of me/ I can’t use it anymore/It’s getting dark, too dark to see/I feel like I’m knocking on Heaven’s door. This describes the end of an era and the absurdity of resorting to Russian roulette.
Resolution 2797/2025 warns against potential moves that a well-known troublemaker might be tempted to bring in. It places the Moroccan initiative at the center of the prospective negotiations, even if it means accepting ideas (improvements) that the other parties might come up with.
In short, Christopher Ross‘s analysis of the geopolitics surrounding the issue of the Moroccan Sahara is intriguing. It reveals that spite drives him to turn a blind eye to the reality on the ground and continue to beat the air.
Ross plays a score full of false notes, particularly on what he deems the ambiguity regarding “Moroccan Sovereignty” and “Sahrawi Self-determination.” Once again, he expresses his obsession with embroidering on a chimerical existence of a phantom state and a movement in a phase of erosion.
Even more surprisingly, Ross ignores the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (Res. 1514 of 12/14/1960, Res. 5141 of 12/15/1960, and Res. 2665 of 10/24/1970) that have given a broader interpretation to the principle of the right to self-determination.
Equally astonishing is the fact that Ross has ignored the response of Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to two Algerian journalists accredited to Moscow, according to which autonomy is an expression of the right to self-determination. He has even emphasized that the uncompromising positions of certain parties, which go back to the period before 2007, no longer prevail.
Similarly, Ross makes no mention of the fact that the compromise reached on October 31, 2025, wouldn’t have been achieved had Morocco not shown flexibility at a very critical stage of negotiation. Morocco does not insult the future. It leaves the way open for Algeria, being the main party, in the hope that it will participate in good faith in resolving the Sahara conflict once and for all.
Resolution 2797/2025 confirms the Moroccan approach based on the Joint Survival paradigm, ruling out the Bitter End paradigm. This is where the real significance of the hand King Mohammed VI extended to Algeria becomes clear, provided that the latter (and thus Ross) understands that the upcoming negotiations, under Resolution 2797/2025, do not concern sovereignty, but rather the appropriate way to turn the page on the regional dispute over the Sahara.
Ross’s implicit speculations on the superiority and preeminence of the Sahrawi populations of Tinduf compared to the Moroccan Sahrawis in the Southern Provinces leave one speechless. They call into question his knowledge of the tribal dimension in the North African region and its impact on the political and societal chessboard.
Ross persists and signs in the fixation on Morocco. He talks about two parties to the conflict. He slyly corrects himself and mentions three parties, ironically adding ‘’as Morocco wants.’’ He deliberately ignores the substance of Resolution 2797/2025, which unambiguously lists all the parties involved.
He, in bad faith, refers to the European Court of Justice decision by raising the issue of sovereignty in the disputed territory. He deliberately fails to mention that the ECJ is a regional jurisdiction whose decisions don’t basically concern Morocco per se. He aims to limit the impact of Resolution 2797/2025. The latter cites the autonomy plan for the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty as the only feasible solution to the conflict.
This is all the more mind-boggling as Ross makes no mention of the signing of the exchange of letters amending the agricultural agreement between Morocco and the European Union in October 2025. This amendment clears the ambiguity regarding products originating from the southern Moroccan provinces. It is believed that negotiations on amending the European Union-Morocco fisheries agreement will begin soon to achieve the same goals of clarity and transparency.
Ross, totally overestimating his role as a retired seasoned diplomat, forgot to remember that the UNSG personal envoys’ mission is always to help implement the resolutions the UNSC passes; no more, no less (Hami, H. ‘Personal Envoys at the Bottom of the Wave’, MWN, October 25, 2024).
Indeed, personal envoys have no power to go beyond the framework set by the UNSC – and even less to use their wit to slow down the momentum that the process of resolving the Sahara issue is gaining within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty.
One of the most challenging tasks that those who blindly support the right of people to self-determination and generalize it, no matter what, have to meet would be the following: How would they define the so-called Sahrawi people? By referring to the geographic, historical, and cultural dimensions? By privileging the ethnical and tribal dimensions? By rehearsing social stratification and the inclusion-exclusion dilemma dimensions? Furious madness!
Two-faced, too hard to take it all
Much to the chagrin of Christopher Ross and Morocco’s few adversaries in the United States, Resolution 2797/2025 is not as ambiguous as it seems on the issue of sovereignty. It singles out the Moroccan plan as the best and only option. It gives a broad interpretation to the right to self-determination principle (Resolutions 1514-1541 and 2665 of the UNGA).
If they stubbornly insist on seeing the “Sahrawi” people only in southern Morocco, let them be more magnanimous to include the populations living in a Saharan area that encompasses half of Africa.
Indeed, instead of targeting Morocco, Christopher Ross would do well to pay attention to the emergence of voices in Tunisia, Mali, and Niger that are challenging the demarcation of borders that Algeria inherited from colonization.
This, not to mention Libya, which constitutes the next step on the United States’ agenda in its efforts to resolve most of the endemic conflicts in Africa. Libya has never recognized the delimitation of its borders with Algeria.
Ross is more seriously invited to comment on the prospect of independence that the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK) intends to make official before the end of 2025.
Morocco does not support separatist movements that undermine the territorial integrity of states, including that of Algeria. From then on, Morocco’s detractors are called upon to look elsewhere for another scapegoat.
If instability, God forbid, were to occur, it wouldn’t be because of Morocco’s hypothetical involvement. Shortly, Morocco will have legally and diplomatically sealed its full sovereignty in its southern provinces. Disorder would be brought about by state actors who would fight hard to set the record straight with respect to colonial errors on African borders.
One positive point to mention, however, in Ross’s piece. He establishes an indirect link between the Moroccan Western Sahara and the Eastern Sahara, where the Polisario movement has been settled since 1975. Yet, no mention of Algeria’s enmity against Morocco as a result of its biased diplomatic and military behavior that has lasted for fifty years, and so,
To sum up: What happened on October 31, 2025, at the UNSC is not about stepping back but rather a setback for state and non-state actors who have worked for seventy years, starting with the Sand War in 1963, to destabilize North Africa while making the intangibility of borders inherited from colonization their shield and Trojan horse.
Certainly, the process of implementing Resolution 2729/2025 will be long and exhausting, but one thing is unavoidable: all the parties mentioned in the latter will participate. Christopher Ross overestimates Algeria’s ability to challenge the UNSC or enter into direct conflict with the United States. The need for resolving endemic post-COVID conflicts is really not a unilateral, personal, or “ill-considered” decision by President Donald Trump. It’s an international request that urges clearing up the geopolitical compass from the old-fashioned perceptions about conflict resolution processes worldwide.
Unless he didn’t do his homework, Ross is well aware that the idea of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty has been in the vibe since the early 1990s. It was on this basis that James Baker concocted his first proposal (Baker Plan I), before, for undisclosed reasons, it was diverted from its main objective. Fortunately, poetic justice and diplomatic inspiration helped; Morocco proposed its own plan in 2007, catching everyone off guard.
Ross may keep trying to put a spell on Morocco, but this only reminds me of Boumediene, who once said that he would “make the Sahara a pebble in Morocco’s shoe.” If Boumediene and his successors failed to accomplish their goals after more than seventy years of steady efforts, Ross is unlikely to succeed either.
He’d better take it easy and enjoy listening to Christopher Ross’ epic song ‘Sailing.’ Indeed, his homonym was at the heart of his teenage years when he released this song in 1979, hoping to ease his mind.
The lyrics express a down-to-earth feeling: “Well, it’s not far down to paradise/ At least it’s not for me/And if the wind is right, you can sail away/ And find tranquility/ Oh, the canvas can do miracles/ Just you wait and see, believe me/Sailing/Take me away to where I’ve always heard it could be/Just a dream and the wind to carry me/Soon I will be free.
Seasoned diplomats like Christopher Ross, who hail the right to the self-determination principle regardless of the context, are requested to turn the page and to admit that what happened on October 31, 2025, at the UNSC is not a step back. It’s a setback for Morocco’s neophyte gravediggers and for those who want to keep the Europe-Maghreb-Sub-Saharan Africa triangle in a state of permanent instability and disorder.
