A round of Manhasset negotiations over the Sahara conflict cannot be the final round, despite the increasing possibility that the talks might fail. However, the round might be the first of its kind, according to a new approach by the United Nations envoy for the Sahara conflict, Christopher Ross. The holding of seven direct and indirect rounds of talks poses the question: where do the sources of imbalance in this experience lie? Does it have to do with a method that has been unable to bridge the differences in stances by the concerned parties? Or is it the negotiators' inability to formulate the specific goals required by Security Council resolutions? Or, is the regional conflict too big to be contained through negotiations that turn into public relations exercises? These are urgent questions, but they have not been raised in the past. Many believed that the so-called consensus-based political solution could result in a change in stances. However, the logic that used to prevail in dealing with earlier resolutions, characterized as excessive, is the same that continues today, at least while Morocco and the Polisario Front are being labeled as direct parties to the conflict, while Algeria and Mauritania are described as indirect parties. However, experience has confirmed that resolutions cannot last on the ground without Algeria's agreement to a cease-fire. In the same way, unless all of the parties cooperate with the UN and with each other, as stipulated by the exhortations of the Security Council, no progress can be made on the negotiations track. Indeed, how can the mobilization of new tendencies in the Sahara conflict's regional realm secure the cementing of the notion that there is a need for peace, security and stability? There is a big disparity between what is taking place in Manhasset and the situation on the ground. The negotiators are as far apart as they can be from meeting in the middle field. It is truly ironic that the conditions for regional accord are absent in the relations of the various sides, while negotiators are being asked to achieve something that has no basis for existence. They are subject to divergent viewpoints and are unable to come up with anything positive, no matter how small it may be. Perhaps it is for this reason, and others, that Ross has the right to reconsider the method and conditions of the negotiations, which were agreed to under the rubric of good intentions, with no preconditions. The utopia of talks has not become a reality; the only thing that is real is the wagers on buying time, which have become a policy that practically exists in and of itself. The issue has become clear enough. What hundreds of hours of talks in seven previous rounds, whatever their character, were unable to achieve is unlikely to be achieved by an eighth round, surrounded by dangers on all sides. However, the American diplomat, who has come up with new ways to overcome political and psychological obstacles, can always rely on some of the breakthrough that guarantees that the negotiators will come together, and perhaps preserve a minimum of exhibiting the optimal readiness to give up on an issue that will become only more complex in the future. Ross is not beginning from the point where the fourth round of direct negotiations ended. He could have done this, based on the notion of the continuity of UN efforts. He might have wanted to reach his conclusions based on experience, and not on the results of others. The method is the man, and Ross is not Peter Van Walsum, his predecessor. However, the parties are the same and the issue is not beyond comprehension, except to the degree that is there is interpretation. From his position as envoy, Ross might resort to presenting a pure idea or ideas that help him find a starting point in the minefield of the shifting sands of the Sahara. There have been no dramatic changes in the area of North Africa concerned with the Sahara negotiations. Nonetheless, it is correct to believe that change might come from Manhasset, and affect Morocco. There is a need to attract the sides to another arena of conflict, since the regional situation is frozen. If the Manhasset negotiations, whether today or tomorrow, become a center of attraction, then Ross will have achieved another breakthrough; at the least, it will be a change in the situation of the region, brought about by the external world. Joining the Manhasset talks requires more speed than the usual cautious steps, which produce only negativities in regional relations that have the possibility of improvement, and set down impossible conditions to produce this improvement.
