Who Has the Right to Determine Sudan’s Future?.. A Reading of the UAE’s Guardianship Discourse

By Suleiman Al-Aqeeli

The United Arab Emirates’ increasingly hardline and interventionist positions toward the internal affairs of other Arab states continue to escalate. In its latest official statements, it rejected the idea that Sudan’s future should be determined by what it describes as “extremist groups,” including those linked to what it calls the “Muslim Brotherhood.”

This position goes beyond political analysis of the parties to the conflict and instead becomes an attempt to impose pre-determined ideological criteria on the nature of Sudan’s political system — in clear contradiction to the principles of national sovereignty and the right of peoples to self-determination.

From an international legal perspective, no state has the right to restrict another people’s choices in selecting their political system. Nor is it legitimate to employ concepts such as counterterrorism and “extremist groups” — often broad and politically instrumentalized terms — as a pretext to intervene in the political system of another state or to exclude entire political currents from the national arena. Doing so transforms security discourse into a project of political guardianship over sovereign states.

In its official rhetoric, the UAE claims it rejects “foreign interference in Arab affairs” and calls for protecting Arab political unity from external intervention. Yet this discourse collides with the reality of its role in Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia, where it has intervened through supporting military and political actors and by imposing red lines on the participation of certain political forces in governance. In some cases, it has also supported or sought to advance the fragmentation of other states.

Herein lies the paradox: The UAE rejects external interference in Arab affairs while itself exercising a form of political guardianship over other states, justifying this through the fight against the “Muslim Brotherhood” and “terrorism.” This is despite the fact that political classifications of groups such as the Brotherhood vary across states and international organizations. There is no unified international or Arab consensus aligned with the UAE’s narrow view of Islamic political movements, nor is there Arab or international consensus supporting the UAE’s framing of Sudan’s political landscape.

The fundamental question ignored by these isolated and controversial Abu Dhabi narratives is this: Who holds the authority to define “extremist groups” in Sudan? Islamic political currents have participated in political life for decades. Some have engaged in peace negotiations and participated in transitional governments, most recently during the 2019–2021 period.

When the UAE raises the banner of “fighting the Muslim Brotherhood” as a pre-set political criterion for accepting or rejecting any transitional project in Sudan, it transforms a security or ideological concept into a constitutional and legal standard. This means that any government associated with these currents would be deemed “illegitimate” in Abu Dhabi’s view — even if it were the result of elections or national consensus. This effectively shifts political authority outside Sudan’s borders, rather than leaving it within Sudanese society.

International law does not grant any state the right to “choose” among political parties or movements in another country, nor does it allow it to impose a specific model of governance — whether civilian, military, Islamic, or secular — on another people. What is permissible is humanitarian and economic support, mediation in conflicts, and advocacy for political solutions, but within the framework of neutrality and without imposing preconditions on the nature of the political system.

When the UAE insists that the Muslim Brotherhood cannot play any role in Sudan’s future, it moves beyond the role of an observer or potential mediator into that of a political arbiter deciding who is “acceptable” and who is “unacceptable” in Sudan’s political sphere. This contradicts the principle of self-determination guaranteed by the UN Charter and replaces it with a regional influence project based on excluding entire political currents from the political landscape according to an internal Emirati classification. The result is declared guardianship in the name of counterterrorism.

Ultimately, the UAE’s position toward Sudan cannot be read merely as a security or political concern, but as part of a broader project aimed at reshaping the political landscape of regional states according to ideological and political standards set by Abu Dhabi, under banners such as combating terrorism and extremism.

But a just regional order cannot be built on one state exercising guardianship over the political systems of others, regardless of claims about protecting “stability” or the “civilian order.” Sudan, like other nations, possesses a historical legacy older than the UAE as a state, a rich political experience, and a living society, institutions, and political forces capable of choosing their own political system — without Abu Dhabi or any other external actor imposing a pre-determined list of political prohibitions in the name of concepts shaped by political conflict and self-interest.