Unraveling Sudan's Crisis: UAE and Saudi Arabia's Role in the Coup, RSF, and the Path to Redemption

If you recall, I did several videos covering the outbreak of the conflict or the war the civil war in Sudan Right beginning right when the attempted coup by the RSF took place against the military ruler, General Burhan. Now at that time, I was one of the only people who was suggesting that the coup was in fact approved and supported, if not engineered, by The United Arab Emirates along with Saudi Arabia. The regime at that time was on track to restore civilian democratic rule in Sudan. They were gonna have elections. And my opinion was that The UAE and Saudi Arabia wanted to secure their control over Sudan rather than to allow any civilian elected leader to come to power whose behavior might be unpredictable.

Now the RSF is a militia that has close ties to The UAE, and I imagine that the idea was that they could topple the government, seize power, and perhaps the RSF leader, Dagolo, could just exchange his uniform for a suit and tie just the same way that Abdel Fatah Assisi did in Egypt and ruled the country as a, quote, unquote, civilian military dictator acting as a client of The Gulf States. Now I also said that I believe that the Americans, the Chinese, and the Russians were likely in the loop on the coup plan, on the policy, on the the attempt. And they accepted this idea insofar as all three of these countries have found it useful, so far to rely upon The UAE and upon Saudi Arabia as more or less brokers in the region or as managers, of their competing interests in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Americans, I believe, would retain the option of just plunging Sudan into chaos and anarchy if the coup did not succeed because the Americans have less at stake in Sudan and less at stake than China. And their main interest in Sudan is just to ensure that the interests of Russia and China are undermined.

At that time, most people disagreed with me about the role of The United Arab Emirates and the role of Saudi Arabia, but it has become abundantly clear that the RSF is indeed a militia of the Emiratis. Saudi Arabia's role is maybe a bit less overt. Now they hosted a number of a peace negotiations between the Burhan government and the RSF, but the whole thrust of these negotiations, was essentially to get Burhan to step aside, and to accept that the Gulf states were not going to support him, and that they they they treated the RSF as a legitimate entity. So, of course, the talks failed. Now as the conflict wore on, I said that the politically and morally right thing to do for The UAE, would be to throw the RSF under the bus and to try to repair their relations with Burhan and with the Sudanese army.

I also said, however, that I thought The UAE would be very unlikely to do that as they have a tendency The UAE has a tendency to dig in their heels when they feel that their reputation and their prestige are at stake. The way they see it, believe, is that a failure will damage their overall credibility as a regional power player and as a reliable manager of the interests of Russia and China and of the West. So they believe that they have to win no matter how many lives are lost, no matter how much devastation is caused, and no matter how much the RSF and no matter how much they themselves become hated by the people of Sudan. I think that they were misled by Dagolo about the power and the effectiveness of the RSF and about the, popularity and the prowess of the Sudanese army. They didn't expect it to go this way.

And the only logical and, again, the only moral thing for them to do would be to abandon the RSF completely at this point and throw their full support behind the government. The policy that they're taking, in my opinion, is deeply corrupt and deeply immoral, as well as politically foolish. Both The UAE and Saudi Arabia have had great success, in expanding their spheres of influence through the use of soft power. But whenever they dabble in militias and in violence, things go sideways very quickly, and they tend to go on for a long time like that. So I would suggest at this point that Saudi Arabia should reconvene peace negotiations, but this time they should do so with integrity.

They should call the coup what it was, and they should call the rebels what they are because they are criminals and thugs, and the attempted overthrow of the government was a crime. The RSF has to be completely disavowed. They have to be cut off from all support and they have to be eliminated. Backing the coup was a bad idea, an immoral idea from the beginning. And The UAE and Saudi Arabia, if they wanna have influence in Sudan, they should concentrate as they have concentrated and should have concentrated from the beginning on soft power, on investment, on financial aid, on programs that will actually benefit the people of Sudan, not on an aggressive bloody power grab, which is what they did.

So, in my opinion, if they have not completely spoiled their relationship with Sudan, then they need to try to repair it from now. And they need to do that by bringing an end to the strife that they caused. They need to try to undo the damage and they need to atone for it. I mean, apply some of that that same diplomatic expertise to Sudan like they have been applying elsewhere in Iran, with Lebanon, with Egypt, with Russia, and with China, and with all of the BRICS nations. Renounce the policy of insurrection and violent domination.

You know, it's reported, and again, this is something that I talked about and predicted from the very beginning of this conflict that Russia has been supportive of the coup, and they've been supportive of the rebellion, and that Wagner has been involved to one degree or another on behalf of the RSF. This, I believe, has been offered by Russia because The UAE and Saudi Arabia convinced them that the RSF can actually win. But this could become a proxy war very quickly just like Syria and Ukraine. And The United States will be quite happy to not only see Sudan Sudan itself be completely torn apart, but for that conflict to spill over into other countries, they'd be quite happy about that. If steps are not taken immediately to end the fighting look.

Sudan is a Muslim country. It's a brotherly country. And The UAE and Saudi Arabia, in my opinion, have contemptively wronged their brother, and they need to make it right.