A Reading of Regional Escalation and the War in Sudan

Moatasim Aqraa

The past few weeks have witnessed a significant regional escalation across Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Its most prominent features include:

the rapid and large-scale enhancement of arms supplies to the Janjaweed militias;

intensive media activity by the Janjaweed’s allies inside Sudan, who conceal their identities;

an accelerating pace of fragmentation in Yemen and Somalia into smaller entities;

a major arms deal approved by Pakistan to sell weapons to Khalifa Haftar in Libya;

and visits by Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, accompanied by strong statements from all three countries affirming support for Sudan’s unity, sovereignty, and state institutions, including its army.

The significance of Burhan’s visits lies not merely in the fact that they took place, but in their highly public and widely covered nature, and in the forceful, high-level statements issued in each country he visited. It is clear that Burhan’s tour was not an individual initiative by the Sudanese state, but a coordinated step planned jointly with these countries—this, incidentally, is how states operate. Most consequential negotiations take place behind closed doors, while the public appearances of leaders serve primarily to announce outcomes and send messages that vary in tone and intensity.

Burhan’s visits, alongside the broader regional movement at the leadership level, point to the emergence of a new alliance that includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Sudan, and Eritrea, while Russia, Iran, and Qatar closely monitor developments. Some rumors and speculation suggest serious efforts to draw Khalifa Haftar toward this emerging bloc, and that the arms deal signed with him by Pakistan—a Saudi ally—may be a down payment or goodwill gesture. Such claims remain speculative and may prove true or false.

The escalation took a new turn with reports of Saudi air intervention aimed at thwarting plans to partition Yemen. Amid this volatile scene, Russia, Qatar, Eritrea, and Iran are watching closely and are likely to intervene at a moment that suits their respective calculations.

This brings us to the central point: it has now become evident that Sudan has long been part of a broader, long-term plan devised by global and regional powers to reshape the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

In light of these developments, it is increasingly clear that earlier superficial interpretations of the war in Sudan—whether portraying it as a clash between two corrupt generals or as a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to derail democracy—were entirely flawed and fundamentally wrong. This grave misreading can be attributed to several factors.

First, the invaders’ propaganda machine was powerful, investing vast sums of money and resources to distort the nature of the war and to manipulate both Sudanese public opinion and the global audience. Second, local Sudanese allies of the invaders worked tirelessly to promote a false narrative, blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for everything that has gone wrong in Sudan.

Third, the left failed to rise to the challenge and expose the truth. Some of its elements joined the propaganda of the invaders and their local agents; others withdrew and chose silence to protect their personal safety and interests, avoiding the cost of taking a national stance. Still others adopted similar positions out of ideological superficiality. They proved incapable of independent thinking in the face of new and unprecedented challenges for which the canonical texts of European leftist thinkers offer no ready-made guidance. Thus, some liberals and leftists sympathize with Hamas’s Gaza and with Iran’s clerical regime in their wars, yet accept foreign aggression against Sudan on the pretext of Muslim Brotherhood influence.

An obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood as a substitute ideology has, for decades, replaced serious political thinking among Sudan’s educated class. Simplistic hostility toward the Brotherhood became an easy yardstick for claiming intellectual patriotism and democratic virtue, relieving its adherents of rigorous analysis and moral responsibility. This mindset has suffocated authentic Sudanese political thought. For years, the specter of the “extremist Muslim Brotherhood” spread among the educated elite because it absolved them of the burden of reading and critical thinking. To be considered a certified intellectual and democratic patriot, it was enough to insult the Brotherhood and link them to every problem in the world. This convenient scarecrow spared many from confronting their intellectual and ethical responsibilities. Personally, I cannot recall the last political discussion about Sudan that did not end with complaints about the evils of the Muslim Brotherhood. The cynical, propagandistic use of this scarecrow is a death certificate for Sudanese thought and political consciousness.

Millions of Sudanese adopted misguided positions on the war because they fell victim to this propaganda. These are decent people who can be excused.

One of the greatest historical mistakes made by sincere actors was their failure to grasp the true nature of the Sudanese war. Portraying the conflict as a global jihad against “Muslim Brotherhood terrorism” merely revives an old colonial playbook, through which imperial powers once justified wars and domination over the Global South by invoking the specter of communism during the Soviet era. It was therefore expected that the left would be the first to recognize this cynical exploitation of the Brotherhood scarecrow—but this did not happen. Perhaps this was due to the deep-seated fixation on the “Kizan,” and, more importantly, the intimidation practiced by the opposing side, which branded any dissent as “Brotherhood sympathizing.” This is a dangerous accusation that can deprive the accused of livelihoods, workshops, travel opportunities, and social standing, and may even land them in serious trouble with regional and global powers—sometimes merely by denying them a visa.

This failure, coming from other quarters, amounted to a historic betrayal of the Sudanese people, in which leftists, liberals, and “repentant” Islamists—who migrated to the pastures of liberal imperialism after the coffers of political Islam ran dry—were all complicit. The war might have ended quickly had it been correctly identified from the outset, domestically and internationally. That did not happen because of the invaders’ propaganda and the distortions propagated by liberals and leftists.

In conclusion, we believe—rightly or wrongly—that the regional realignment has shifted in a direction favorable to the Sudanese state, which now has little left to lose. After facing alone a brutal assault backed by immense financial power and vast gold reserves, the entry of influential regional powers into the arena could ease the pressure on Sudan and improve its prospects.

The resilience of the Sudanese people—withstanding for nearly three years a ferocious invasion by forces that would terrify entire nations—is an extraordinary epic of heroism that history will one day acknowledge, even if today it is portrayed by comprador elites tied organically to the centers of aggression as mere “Brotherhood agitation,” and its heroes as warmongers.