When the United Kingdom’s new foreign secretary, David Lammy, stood in Rabat this past June and endorsed Morocco’s Western Sahara autonomy plan, he sealed an unprecedented United Nations Security Council alignment: After half a century, the United States, France, and the U.K. are pressing toward the same political end state. Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony on the Atlantic, is effectively under Moroccan sovereignty. Algeria and its armed proxy, the Polisario Front, contest Morocco’s control.
Lammy warned that 2025 was “a vital window of opportunity” and urged U.N. Security Council action before the dispute over Western Sahara reaches its 50th anniversary next November. That Security Council alignment is exceptional, yet delicate. The process now hinges on how quickly this consensus can be translated into a U.N. framework this summer, before shifting politics in Madrid or Paris, or escalating Algerian maneuvering, test its durability.
The realignment began in 2022, when Spain, Western Sahara’s former colonial administrator and the European country most exposed to Sahara fallout, called Morocco’s autonomy proposal “the most serious, realistic, and credible” path forward.
France, long the swing vote inside Europe, followed in 2024, formally endorsing the same plan after years of hedging between Rabat and Algiers. Their twin pivots removed two of the most influential Western patrons of the old status quo and signaled that they now favor autonomy.
Then came Britain, where the left-of-center government with no electoral incentive to placate Morocco reached the same conclusion, announcing in June that London, too, would back Rabat’s offer. Three major European capitals therefore agree that autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only workable solution.
On the front line, Mauritania, Morocco’s southern neighbor along the Saharan frontier, has acted just as decisively. Nouakchott reinforced its northern patrol lines and choked off desert corridors once used for Polisario raids, trapping insurgent units against the Algerian border.
Across the Arab world, a quorum has formed as well. The Gulf Cooperation Council and most other Arab League capitals now back Morocco’s sovereignty claim. Only Algeria demurs, underscoring its role as Polisario’s principal state sponsor.
Great power reactions underscore how lopsided the new balance has become. China continues to affect neutrality. Russia remains Algeria’s principal arms supplier, yet cracks in the axis have appeared following Algeria’s failed bid to join the BRICS, while Moscow’s resources are drained in Ukraine and disagreements over Sahel strategy deepen. No outside patron is rushing to rescue the Polisario from its diplomatic free fall, and a drive in Washington to consider listing the group as a terrorist organization is gaining momentum.
Even U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, who once floated “partition” as a potential solution, now urges the Security Council to spell out the Moroccan autonomy plan, an implicit acknowledgement that an independence referendum is unrealistic.
The U.S. set this process in motion when it recognized Moroccan sovereignty in December 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords process. Recognition alone, however, is not closure. As the conflict’s 50th anniversary draws near, ceremonial politics may crowd out hard diplomacy.
Some analysts argue that a settlement plan for Western Sahara should be embedded in an international framework that aligns unambiguously with Washington’s position. Lammy’s stated strategic end state appears to be a U.N. Security Council resolution codifying Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara. In parallel, allowing the obsolete mandate of MINURSO, the U.N. mission tasked with monitoring the 1991 ceasefire, to lapse, despite potential reservations from Rabat, would signal that the status quo is over and narrow Algeria’s scope for obstruction before broader U.S. engagement on energy or security.
Sequenced this way, progress on Western Sahara could proceed, ideally with Algerian cooperation, on its own track, reflect the U.S. vision for resolution, and definitively reveal whether Algiers’ persistent hints of distancing itself from Moscow are genuine or merely tactical.
Should Washington decide to lead, it could first work with Rabat to turn the 20-year-old autonomy outline into a statute that detailed fiscal powers, cultural safeguards, and security guarantees. Once that text is complete, the U.S., with the U.K.’s and France’s help, could table a draft resolution naming autonomy as the sole negotiating basis, instruct U.N. envoy de Mistura to convene technical talks, and set a fixed timetable for conclusion.
Moscow would almost certainly veto, Beijing would likely abstain, but the exercise would nonetheless clarify positions and bank an agreed text for the future.
Separately, allowing MINURSO’s outdated mandate to lapse at the next renewal cycle would force both Algeria and Morocco to confront a post-status-quo landscape. The very prospect of confrontation would raise the cost of disengagement, supplying the urgency that can propel diplomacy, provided the current alignment is consolidated while that pressure is still manageable.
Failure to cement today’s convergence would almost certainly shift that same pressure toward open escalation. Morocco, having absorbed years of Algerian political and economic coercion as well as intermittent Polisario attacks without major retaliation, could soon exhaust its political latitude and turn to decisive action against Polisario positions deep into the desert, perilously close to Algerian territory. Algiers, already primed by systematic internal mobilization against Morocco, would be incentivized to expand the conflict beyond proxy skirmishes into domains the U.N.’s good offices could not contain. A widening conflict here would destabilize North Africa, disrupt NATO’s southern flank, and imperil maritime routes critical to global trade and U.S. regional naval posture. Anchoring the current consensus is therefore paramount.
Washington, London, and Paris have already converged on the only politically viable end-state for Western Sahara. What remains is a choice: Convert that rare alignment into irreversible momentum, or drift back to maneuvering that strategic rivals would continue to exploit. The next moves will reveal whether this half-century dispute enters its closing chapter or continues as another lesson in what happens when diplomatic indecision lets opportunity pass it by.
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