اقرأوا هذا المقال لصحيفة الإسبانيول
التحليل يتناول مسألة إغراق جزر الكناري بالمهاجرين وهذه المسألة كنت قد أشرت إليها في موضوع آخر كأحد أوراق الضغط في يد المغرب
بالضغط على جزر الكناري (التغيير الديموقرافي للجزر) نحن أولا نتجنب إغضاب الاتحاد الأوربي لأن الأوضاع في الشمال مستقرة والأرقام تكشف انحسار كبير لتوافد المهاجرين على اسبانيا (الاتحاد الأوروبي) ساحل المغرب المتوسطي
لكن في المقابل أعداد المهاجرين تتزايد نحو جزر الكناري
اسبانيا مهما طال الزمن ستكون مضطرة للتفاوض بدون الحاجة إلى إطلاق رصاصة واحدة
لأن إرجاع سبتة ومليلية إلى المغرب أهون بكثير من تغيير ديموغرافية جزر الكناري
الكناريين في الأيام الماضية نظموا مظاهرات ضد الهجرة
The unnecessary war: this is how Morocco will get what it wants from Spain "without firing a shot"
"Reaching the use of open armed force involves considerable complexity and a problem at the international level," the experts reflect.
The unnecessary war: this is how Morocco will get what it wants from Spain "without firing a shot"
"Reaching the use of open armed force involves considerable complexity and a problem at the international level," the experts reflect.
December 21, 2020 02:12
"The relations between Spain and Morocco have known great maturity, they are fully trustworthy, like
two neighbors and friends ." "Between the Royal Houses of both countries there have always been excellent relations of friendship and solidarity."
Karima Benyaich, Mohamed VI's ambassador to Spain , launched a message of concord non-stop during the interview she had with EL ESPAÑOL last Thursday, dismantling any conspiracy theory.
Spain is, today, the largest investor in the Alawite kingdom, with more than 1,000 companies based in its territory and with interactions of at least another 7,000. An
intense economic link that also occurs in the opposite direction and that confirms the words of the ambassador, although it does not reflect the whole reality of the relations between both countries, somewhat more tense than usual in recent times due to certain Moroccan movements .
Is a war between Spain and Morocco possible in 2021? Today, relations between the two countries are conditioned by a series of geopolitical and security factors that endow them with a complexity that is not without ambiguities. However, "none of this suggests that an armed conflict could be plausible," explains
Jesús Argumosa , retired general and former head of Higher Defense Studies at the Higher Center for National Defense Studies.
In the XXI century, it transcends the idea that wars do not start or are triggered by wielding a weapon. “Coming to the use of open armed force involves considerable complexity and a problem at the international level. There are other ways of exerting pressure that are much easier to dust off: economic, technological, informational or immigration ”, points out
Guillem Colom , professor of Political Science at the Pablo de Olavide University and member of the academic council of the Institute of Security and Culture.
Nor for Defense analyst
Jesús M. Pérez would it be the most logical answer from the other side of the Strait: “It is difficult to imagine circumstances that lead Morocco to a conflict with Spain when it is clear that it
can achieve its objectives without firing a shot. " . Even more so when Spain is an object interposed between Morocco and its objectives and not an end in itself.
All the experts consulted agree that
a hypothetical armed conflict is considered
"unlikely" , but point out in one way or another the interests and the way of understanding the foreign relations of the neighboring kingdom.
The arrival of the pandemic served on a platter the perfect excuse to
close the borders of Ceuta and Melilla . Morocco, although not publicly, has claimed
the co-sovereignty of both Spanish autonomous cities for years and had unilaterally begun a process of border closure since 2018, long before the Covid, economically asphyxiating both cities and also the Moroccan inhabitants on their side from the border.
With the pandemic, Morocco took the opportunity to
close land crossings and strangle maritime lines . Algeciras lost weight, traffic and business, while the maritime lines with France and Italy are still active today - Rabat seems bent on activating
added connections with the United Kingdom via Gibraltar - and the ports of Tangier and Agadir assumed the burden of the step operation of the Strait to the detriment of Spanish ports and they continue to monopolize their transit today.
The visit of Felipe VI to Mohamed VI in 2018 was a before and after in irregular immigration across the Strait. Moreover, the Moroccan security forces in the north were so tight that the
migratory flows of their own citizens and sub-Saharan migrants dramatically veered towards its Atlantic coast, where Morocco repeatedly states that it does not have the capacity to control
its 3,000 kilometers of line maritime, while the mafias launch cayucos without stopping and with lower rates than those required to cross the
14 kilometers of the Strait .
2020, however, began with a new dispute regarding the delimitation of territorial waters and the expansion of the exclusive economic zone around the
Tropic seamount , which contains important reserves of tellurium and cobalt. The migratory crisis came after the first wave of Covid-19, when up to 2,600 immigrants ended up crammed into the port of Arguineguín in conditions that the Ombudsman considered
violated Human Rights .
These actions or pressure methods are capable of being interpreted from the perspective of the
hybrid , as
Jesús M. Pérez remarks . The Moroccan game, according to this perspective, is based, following the EU definition of the concept, on coordinated actions that intentionally attack the vulnerabilities of a State, in this case Spain, through different means (from the economic to the migratory) and that exploits the thresholds of attribution of responsibilities and the
legal border between war and peace .
The possibility of an armed conflict between Spain and Morocco is inconceivable but that does not mean that, in the opinion of the experts, the program of acquisitions of military material of the land, naval and air forces of the North African country increases tension and causes concern in the peninsula.
“
Morocco has strengthened its defensive arm and we cannot consider it marginal or second-rate. It has a powerful deployment and it is greasing it, ”explains Carlos Echeverría, professor of International Relations at UNED and director of the Ceuta and Melilla Observatory, who agrees with the other experts in pointing out that this strategy is part of
an arms race, not with Spain but with
Algeria .
One of the main objectives of the Alawite kingdom at present is rearmament with the firm objective of becoming the military power in the area, “a buffer country in Central Africa”. "
Morocco has its own geopolitics and tries that from its territory there is no stronger power to Turkey," says Fernando Cocho, an intelligence analyst. These "geopolitical circles", however, often go unnoticed in the West and cause reality to be distorted, the expert warns.
According to a report published by the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Research in 2019,
Algeria is the sixth country in the world in purchasing arms and Morocco, the thirty-first.
“
The two big problems for Morocco are the Polisario Front and Algeria. Issues such as the claim to Spain of the territories of Ceuta and Melilla are a traditional element, but by no means at the same level ", Colom sentence, which warns, however, that rearmament could pose a security dilemma for Spain:" So that this does not become a threat it is necessary to maintain a balance, which could lead to other
arms races ”.
And if something can unbalance the current
entente cordiale between the two countries, it is the former colony, which Spanish politicians ignored the same day in 1991 that the United Nations established the
United Nations Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara . In addition, MINURSO is the
cause of an internal fray in the current government of Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias, which does not favor the relaxation of diplomatic relations.
According to sources familiar with the negotiations consulted by EL ESPAÑOL, when Morocco and Spain
'agreed' to postpone the High Level Meeting that was to be held in Rabat on December 17 to February, the insistence of the Moroccan side to communicate it officially and jointly to the 9:00 pm was "strange". Everything fell into place shortly after, at 6:00 p.m. on December 10, when
Donald Trump acknowledged Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara
in a tweet .
The
skirmishes at the Guerguerat border crossing between Moroccan troops and the Polisario Front that led to a
formal declaration of war by the latter were left behind by the political, diplomatic and military move orchestrated by
the Rabat-Washington axis .
“Morocco has always had a very good ability
to play two or three decks and succeed ,” explains Cocho. As an example, it illustrates that the country has been able to maintain with an iron hand a supposed progressive democratization while attracting the foreign market, playing with the fundamentalists when it was interested or winning alliances such as the one it has achieved with the United States.
Morocco was the first country in the world to recognize the United States as an independent country in 1799 and the concord between the two continues to this day. “Since the 18th century a kind of intimacy has been woven that will not change. There are symbolic elements that lead US administrations, of any color, to see in Morocco
an actor that projects stability in a complicated region and that must be supported, ”says Echeverría.
This point, in his opinion, could be a destabilizing factor if we add Spain to the equation. "In a case in which it had to position itself, the
US would have to choose between a NATO ally -Spain- and a friend -Morocco-", he illustrates.
In this regard, there is no consensus on who would choose, nor on
how NATO would act , obliged by Article 5 to support the member countries, although the
United Kingdom or France maintain close and historical relations with Morocco . Moreover, in the altercation that took place on the islet of El Perejil, at the beginning of the century, France avoided showing solidarity with Spain, something that other member countries of the Union such as the United Kingdom or Italy did, and the United States placed itself in a role of mediator.
"Spain has to assume that it does not have to have the support of other stronger ones, such as the US or France, because they are not going to play a role in supporting a country like Spain when they have deep ties with Morocco", defends this expert in International Relations, which considers that this obliges "to consider that
the diplomatic and defense policy with regard to Morocco is above all ours ."
“We must return to the dimension of the internal politics of the countries, the Alawite monarchy is close to the West but if there were a change in the regime we would find ourselves in a situation with greater risks and dangers.
We are in a status quo that we want to maintain but in which difficulties are not lacking and Spain has to take care and not neglect its policy ”, he concludes.
"Llegar al empleo de la fuerza armada abierta conlleva una notable complejidad y un problema a nivel internacional", reflexionan los expertos.
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