The call doesn't come from Rabat or Madrid, but from Washington. In an op-ed published by the American Enterprise Institute think tank, American analyst Michael Rubin suggests that Morocco should organize a new «Green March» to reclaim Ceuta and Melilla. Michael Rubin, member of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) / DR ‹ › «Spain's Pedro Sánchez should make good on his anti-colonial rhetoric and end its occupation in Africa», argues former Pentagon official Michael Rubin in an article published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think tank known for its neoconservative stance. Rubin goes further, suggesting that «Mohammed VI should reclaim the spirit of the Green March to finalize the expulsion of Spanish colonists from Moroccan soil». He adds that «Ceuta and Melilla might be relatively tiny towns, but they represent illegitimate beach heads and are home to approximately 170,000 Spanish settlers. They are a weak spot for European security since African migrants regularly rush the fence to claim asylum». The former U.S. Department of Defense official even suggests that Moroccans should «send bulldozers to the border, and then enter Ceuta and Melilla unarmed to raise the flag». «Sánchez and the Spanish press bleat, but they have no grounds to act. Nor, for that matter, would NATO, even if Moroccan forces entered the towns to restore order and organize the dispatch of settlers across the Strait of Gibraltar and back to Spain», he writes. NATO would not automatically react The expert also advances a legal argument, claiming that such a scenario would not automatically trigger a NATO response. «Article 6 is explicit: "For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America… or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer." Neither Ceuta, Melilla, nor the Canary Islands would trigger a NATO response, just as NATO would not need respond to an attack on Hawaii or Puerto Rico», he explains. In June 2022, during the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain attempted to explicitly extend the Alliance's protection to Ceuta and Melilla. The initiative ultimately failed, despite months of diplomatic efforts highlighting what Madrid described as «threats from the south». Rubin's remarks come amid tensions between the Spanish government and U.S. President Donald Trump, who reportedly threatened on March 3 to sever relations with Spain, a warning reiterated on March 11. The article has sparked significant attention in Spanish media, across both right- and left-leaning outlets, as well as among supporters of the Polisario Front. Last January, the Podemos branch in the Canary Islands accused the People's Party and Vox of legitimizing, through their support for a U.S. military operation against Venezuela, an international doctrine that could pave the way for a new «Green March» backed by Washington, aimed at reclaiming the Canary Islands as well as Ceuta and Melilla.
