The term was first used by Mauritania's first president, Mokhtar Ould Daddah, as he began claiming the territory then known as Spanish Sahara even before Mauritanian independence in 1960. In 1957, Ould Daddah stated The basis for his claim was the close ethnic and cultural ties between the Mauritanian Moors and the Sahrawis of Spanish Sahara, in effect forming two subsets of the same tribalArab-Berber population. The Greater Mauritania region is largely coterminous with the Hassaniya Arabic language area, and had historically been part of the pre-modern Bilad Chinguetti, the Land of Chinguetti, a religious center in contemporary Mauritania. The claim to the Spanish Sahara was again popularized by the regime in the early 1970s, as Spain prepared to depart the colony. Mauritania then feared Moroccan expansion towards its border, against the background of competing claims for a "Greater Morocco" that had previously included not only Spanish Sahara, but also Mauritania in its entirety. C. R. Pennell writes, Say Thompson and Adloff, Mauritanian claims to the territory were thus used to stave off the perceived threat of Moroccan expansionism, and to entice Spain into dividing the territory between Morocco and Mauritania in the Madrid Accords. This, however, did not take into account an Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice that had decided in late 1975 that the people of Western Sahara had a right to self-determination, to be exercised freely in the form of a choice between integration with one or both of Mauritania and Morocco, or setting up an independent state. The Mauritanian portion of the territory, corresponding to the southern half of Río de Oro, or one-third of the entire territory, was renamed Tiris al-Gharbiyya.
Results
The takeover was violently opposed by a pre-existing indigenous independence movement, the Polisario Front, which had gained support from Algeria. The ensuing war went badly for Mauritania, and Ould Daddah's government fell in 1978. The country left Tiris al-Gharbiyya the following year, renouncing all claims to any part of Western Sahara, and recognizing the Polisario Front as its people's legitimate representative. Relations with Rabat deteriorated rapidly, and amid allegations of Moroccan backing for attempted coups and minor armed clashes, Mauritania drew closer to Algeria and the Polisario. The government later established formal relations with the Front's government-in-exile, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as a recognized sovereign over the territory. The vision of Greater Mauritania holds little appeal in today's Mauritania, and it is not pursued by any major political faction. While still recognizing the Sahrawi republic, Mauritania has largely mended relations with Morocco and now generally seeks to stay out of the Western Sahara dispute, which remains unresolved.
