In recent months, the name Michael Rubin has reverberated through the intricate web of interests questioning Spain's sovereignty over its North African enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla. His assertions have sparked significant controversy, particularly when he claimed that Spain cannot provide moral lessons to Israel due to its status as a "colonial power" with "colonies" in northern Morocco, and labeled Spain as the "most antisemitic country in Europe." Rubin explicitly called on former President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to rectify what he termed a "historical error" by recognizing these autonomous cities as "occupied territories." This marked the beginning of a series of articles where he has advocated for Rabat to initiate a new "Green March" to expel the "Spanish colonizers." Contrary to what one might assume, Rubin is not an obscure figure in Washington; he is one of the architects behind the Iraq War and maintains close ties with Morocco and the pro-Israel ecosystem in the United States.
Rubin has spent his career maneuvering behind the scenes, always in the background yet visible enough to have testified multiple times before Congress, participated in discussions at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and interacted with Moroccan diplomats. He was even investigated by the FBI but faced no charges. Formally, he is an expert in international politics, holding a Ph.D. in History from Yale, with a specialization in Iran.
This extensive background paved the way for him to pass through Israel as an academic, work for the Pentagon, advise viceroy Paul Bremer in Iraq, and shape U.S. foreign policy from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent neoconservative think tank closely aligned with the Republican Party. For years, he has also held a similar role at the Middle East Forum, where he has published the aforementioned articles as the Director of Policy Analysis.
Special Plans Office
In 2002, Rubin began working for the Pentagon and was assigned to the Special Plans Office as an advisor on Iraq and Iran. This semi-clandestine office was responsible for crafting many of the fabrications used to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Pentagon Inspector General referred to these as "alternative intelligence analyses." From the alleged ties of Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda to the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Rubin was a pivotal figure promoting war under the pretense that Saddam possessed a formidable arsenal of such weapons, as noted by Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked at the Pentagon during those years and resigned in protest against the falsehoods being propagated.
During those years, Rubin also had connections with Ahmed Chalabi, a prominent Iraqi dissident accused of misleading the Bush Administration with false information. They interacted frequently, as reported by The Nation in 2010. However, it was a different matter that brought him under the FBI's radar. Rubin drafted a national security directive calling for the destabilization of Iran through support for internal opposition groups, which caught the attention of the FBI when it surfaced in discussions involving a senior Pentagon official and AIPAC leaders, who were under investigation for allegedly leaking state secrets to Israel.
Rubin even spent time in Iraq as a political advisor to Paul Bremer, the first official tasked with managing the disastrous post-war administration of Iraq and the Provisional Coalition Authority, as that government was called.
Connections with Morocco
The entire Iraqi adventure faced severe criticism in Congress and the media, including scrutiny of Rubin, who served as an intermediary in the ideological chain of architects behind that war, led by Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, Rubin's superior in the Special Plans Office.
Yet, two decades have passed since then, and with time, much is forgotten. Like other neocon hawks, Rubin has not faded into obscurity; he continues to profit as a staunch advocate for human rights and democracy. Recently, his focus has shifted towards the Mediterranean region, specifically Morocco-Sahara-Spain and Turkey-Cyprus, with Israel's interests appearing as a common thread.
After visiting Western Sahara in 2013, which he recounted in Commentary, he began publishing articles advocating for the alignment of the U.S. with Morocco in the Sahara conflict. This position was ultimately adopted by the White House in late 2020 when Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory in exchange for the normalization of relations between Rabat and Tel Aviv. These two events were announced concurrently.
Rubin then fully entered the Moroccan orbit, participating in the Marrakech Security Forum in 2015 and 2017. That same year, he spoke at an economic conference about the Sahara in Dakhla. The connection resurfaced in 2019, during which the Abraham Accords were firmly established. In April, Rubin exchanged two calls and an email with the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as documented in the U.S. registry of lobbyists working for foreign clients. In October of that year, he returned to Morocco, this time to deliver a speech at the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies in the capital, closely associated with the palace, discussing the strengthening of U.S.-Moroccan relations.
Fast forward to March of this year, Rubin fully committed himself to denouncing "Spanish colonization" in Ceuta and Melilla. His first article appeared a day after Spain dismissed its ambassador to Israel and shortly after denying the U.S. the use of its Spanish bases for an attack on Iran.
As reported by elperiodico.com.
