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FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer was deputy special envoy for the Horn of Africa in the Biden administration and former advisor to two US special envoys for Sudan.
The generals of the Sudanese Armed Forces may be celebrating the United States’ decision on January 7 to impose sanctions on their nemesis, Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, citing genocide. But the announcement risks obscuring a more fundamental truth about Sudan’s brutal war: there will be no military victor and no peace based on the SAF or FAR. However, changing power dynamics in the Middle East present an opportunity and incentive to end the war and remove the country from the broader geopolitical table.
After more than 20 months of conflict, Sudan is Gaza along the Nile. The capital, Khartoum, and other cities and towns are devastated. It is the largest state to collapse in modern history and the largest displacement crisis in the world today. The remaining population is enduring what is likely to be the worst famine in Africa in 100 years.
Many of the same Middle Eastern countries that will most influence Syria’s future – Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates – also hold the keys to Sudan’s future. These states face an election. They could continue to exploit Sudan as a battleground for their rivalries, where military victory is impossible, as the country falls further into the abyss. Or, in concert with Sudan’s neighbors (mainly Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan), they can forge a consensus around a series of parameters to resolve the conflict, a first step toward stabilizing a geopolitical hotspot at the crossroads of Africa. and Middle East.
The war in Sudan is not an asymmetric battle between a government and a rebel group. It is a war of symmetrical weakness: neither the SAF nor the RSF can win militarily or politically. But both have powerful outside backers.
While the Sudanese Armed Forces consider themselves a government, they control a smaller area of Sudan than Bashar al-Assad had in Syria just over a month ago. Its fate depends on the generosity of Iran, Russia and Egypt, all of whom face significant challenges of their own. Their support could provoke a negative response from countries like Israel.
The FAS have delegitimized themselves by systematically blocking vital aid to address the famine and are primarily responsible for mass starvation. Of course, the RSF has also delegitimized itself through genocidal violence, war crimes and crimes against humanity, which have drawn international condemnation of the United Arab Emirates for supporting the paramilitary force.
Peace is more likely to be achieved around belligerents than through them. And the outlines of an end to Sudan may be easier to reach among Western partners in the Middle East, particularly if US President-elect Donald Trump showed an expectation of progress. A regional consensus on the shape of an agreement would force the belligerents to stay on the sidelines and give breathing space to Sudan’s various civilian sectors to negotiate a transitional government.
Achieving consensus would depend on a few basic criteria. First, the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces, the RSF and former President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress party would be excluded from any transitional administration and any future government in Sudan.
Secondly, the unity and territorial integrity within the existing borders are sacrosanct and the sovereignty of Sudan resides in its people. The monopoly on force must be returned to a legitimate government, which requires an end to interference by non-Sudanese in Sudanese affairs, including the supply of weapons and materiel.
Third, sovereign institutions, including the central bank and the National Petroleum Corporation, must be led by technocrats who are not beholden to military actors.
Sudan’s last hope is that the Middle Eastern states that support the SAF and RSF will end the war in their own interest, if not in the interest of the Sudanese people.