Bourita and the 'anticipated' veto: the art of saying after the fact that you had foreseen the blow

E. Lindqvist — Correspondant, New York (ONU) — 2026-11-01

Anticipation, that retro-vision

'Anticipated the scenario.' Note the wording: it is conjugated in the past, but it only revealed itself afterwards. Before the vote, Morocco swore by nothing but its American resolution — the one that was to 'engrave Moroccan sovereignty'. After the veto, it claims to have 'anticipated' it. This is retro-vision, that wonderful faculty of foreseeing blows... once they have landed. You do not foresee a veto that crushes you: you endure it, then you tell the story that you were expecting it. It is the art of turning surprise into strategy.

MINURSO, or MINUSO?

And here is what this 'anticipation' reveals, in spite of itself. What did the American plan that Morocco was defending want? To strip the 'R' from MINURSO — the 'R' of referendum. To turn the mission into a 'MINUSO': a force without a referendum, a presence without consultation, a guardian without a question. That is the 'anticipated scenario': not a plan to win, but a plan to erase the Sahrawis' right to vote. The Russian veto killed that plan. And that is precisely what Morocco calls 'an opportunity'.

The dead end, and what comes after

For the real balance sheet is not an 'opportunity': it is a dead end. MINURSO no longer has a mandate. The ceasefire is no longer monitored. The referendum no longer has a guardian — nor an 'R', for that matter. And when a peace mission dies without being replaced, what returns is not diplomacy: it is war. Morocco may well say it 'anticipated' the veto. What it did not anticipate is the consequence: a ceasefire left exposed, a border growing taut, and weapons stirring back into memory.

The satirical moment

Let us replay the scene, for it deserves to be staged. A veto crushes your resolution. You are on the ground. And you declare: 'I anticipated it.' Anticipated what, exactly? The fall? Then why not have avoided it? Moroccan retro-vision is the art of foreseeing the wall after running into it head-on. And so the dream of MINUSO — that MINURSO amputated of its 'R' — became a circus act: you fall, you get back up, and you swear you had rehearsed the landing. The donkey does not foresee the ditch: he describes it, once he is in it.

The conclusion

MINUSO — the donkey dreamed of it. The Russians vetoed it. And the donkey fell. Bourita can multiply his retrospective 'anticipations'. The facts, for their part, cannot be told in the past tense: they are recorded in the present. On 30 October, Morocco lost its resolution, lost MINURSO's mandate, and lost the 'R' of referendum it dreamed of erasing. What he calls 'an opportunity' is a vacuum — and a vacuum in the Sahara has never announced anything but two things: uncertainty and war. Anticipating war is all well and good. Avoiding it is better. And to avoid it, one thing is required that Morocco has refused for fifty years: to ask the question of the R — REFERENDUM!!!