Max Weber in Khartoum: Democracy or the State? (1-2)

Abdullah Ali Ibrahim

In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Mina Al-Araibi, editor-in-chief of The National magazine in Abu Dhabi, came up with an idea on American policy in the Arab area that is useful in analyzing the raging war in Sudan.
She mentioned America’s current confrontations with non-state armed groups (the Houthis, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, Hezballah) to say that America must prioritize the existence of the nation-state itself over anything else in its foreign policies.
The benefit of this phrase for Sudan in its ongoing war is great because even the most optimistic people are almost convinced that the state of Sudan is about to collapse soon.
It is not clear in American policy that it has made the State the center of its foreign policy circle.
When President Biden said that “global politics is a conflict between liberal democracy and tyranny,” America placed democracy in that position, whether it succeeded in the endeavor or not.
In dealing with these non-State armed entities, it was satisfied with carrots and sticks.
It calls the group a terrorist group, imposes a boycott on it, and then leaves the stick to the carrot at the appropriate time. It imposed a boycott on the Houthis, then retracted it in January 2017, seeking to accompany them in peace efforts in Yemen.
Perhaps the most blatant manifestation of its disdain for the existence of the state is the dissolution of the Baath state army after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the dismantling of the Baath regime.
There is still debate about who ordered the dismantling of the army, but it is certain that it was not the US Army or the CIA.
They were together with the restoration of the Iraqi military to the roots of the Iraqi Baathist army. Besides Paul Bremer III, the ruler of Iraq after its occupation, the clearest person calling for him is the Iraqi opposition, led by Ahmed Shalabi, who is strongly committed to removing all traces of Saddam Hussein and the Baath.
Shalabi wanted to dissolve Saddam’s army and let his forces, the Free Iraqi Forces, take its place. But what really replaced him was an army created by Al-Maliki, Prime Minister (2006-2014), an army that was said to be merely sectarian militias that received their orders from Al-Maliki’s entourage.
Thus, Bremer threw 250,000 unemployed, angry, and armed Iraqi youth into the street.
They were the nucleus of ISIS. Of the organization’s 40 leaders, 25 of them were officers from Saddam’s army. They resisted the occupation for eight years and killed about 4,500 American soldiers. It is known that America was finally forced to confront the organization in Iraq and Syria at the head of an alliance in which the weakest were the states of Iraq and Syria.
In Iraq, the Popular Mobilization Forces replaced the Iraqi army that was defeated by ISIS.
The war of succession in Syria was an opportunity for Russia to empower Bashar al-Assad’s regime regardless. So I consulted non-state armed bodies.
If the state and its status are the subject of discussion, there is no point in returning to its indisputable German theorist, Max Weber (1920). It is a coincidence that James Pfiffner, professor of military science at James Madison University in America, invoked Weber’s name while mourning Bremer’s dismissal of between 80 and 100 thousand employees from the Iraqi civil service.
Weber was the one who viewed bureaucracy as an instrument of the centralized state. According to Weber, bureaucracy is a rational system of employees who manage the affairs of the state smoothly after its occupation. Bremer only needed to remove its leaders at the top.
The bureaucracy continues to function because its services are needed by everyone, including the invading army.
American policy diverges from Weber on the issue of the state. Democracy in the state is a priority in this policy over the state, or it is a condition for the existence of the state.
Since the Sudanese revolution in December 2018, America has been committed to protecting the democratic transition after the removal of the dictatorship of the Salvation State (1989-2019). This commitment was embodied in the Sudan Democratic Transition, Accountability, and Transparency Law of 2020 again in 2021.
The law designated the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces, among other regular forces, who together carried out the October 25, 2021 coup that overthrew The transitional government led by Abdullah Hamdok, as confirmed opponents of the democratic transition.
The law devoted a separate section to the sanctions that the President of the American Republic could impose on them in order to paralyze their hands without hindering this transition.
News circulated recently about sanctions, preceded by others, imposed on the two parties for their limited war to sabotage the democratic transition.
With the outbreak of war between the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces RSF ,it seemed that the position toward America might need some review.
We will not be immune from mistakes and earthquakes if we continue to view it as a war between two generals, Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, whether in their greed for power or opposition to democratic transformation. The magnitude of the conflict has changed.
It is no longer between democracy and dictatorship, in which the SAF and the RSF are the same. Rather, it is about being a State or not being a State.

To be Continued

German Sociologist Max Weber (1920)