Sudan’s Dayton: A Roadmap to Imposed Peace? (1/2)

As I See

Adil El-Baz

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Have you followed how the Quartet’s half-baked plan stumbled from the very beginning? The Quartet has now become a Sextet, after Qatar and the UK were added the day before yesterday under Saudi pressure.
What are we talking about? Ah yes, I forgot — we are not fully conscious or politically healthy; we are still in a coma, and the noise over forming a government sounds exactly like a bunch of confused roosters… crowing with no clear purpose!
So, what’s the story?
There are movements and arrangements happening behind the scenes, scenarios are being crafted — yet here, people remain distracted and absent from the battlefield: no political activity, no diplomatic campaigns, no one raising public awareness about the unfolding scenarios!
Do you know how many delegations have visited Sudan secretly in the past two weeks alone? How many envoys arrived in Port Sudan under cover of night and left hastily?
Today, a decisive battle is being waged in Port Sudan — not with weapons, but with scenarios written in Washington.
To all those sleeping on the soft pillows of deep negligence… Peace.
Here’s what happened and what’s expected:

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On June 3, representatives from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Senior Advisor for African Affairs, Mossad Boulos.
This step launched a new Trump administration initiative to end the conflict in Sudan.
The meeting gave the “Quartet” great momentum, followed by a visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Abu Dhabi to meet UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, for further coordination.
That’s when the Quartet’s wheel began to turn.

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Yesterday, July 20, 2025, Mossad Boulos — the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for African Affairs — confirmed on Al Jazeera that:

“There is no military solution to this conflict. A peaceful resolution must be reached.”
He added that the U.S., with support from President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is playing a key role in cooperation with brothers and partners in the Sudan Quartet: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and the United States.
Boulos also said Washington expects “positive developments soon,” praising Saudi-led initiatives — particularly the Jeddah platform — and confirmed that the U.S. is fully cooperating with them.

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These are the statements from U.S. officials who are leading a path of peace by coercion in Sudan!
What is the roadmap they are following?
It’s a plan cooked up at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy — a think tank producing strategic research for U.S. and regional policymakers.
The institute was founded in 1985 by a group of Americans including Barbi Weinberg, Martin Indyk, and later joined by Condoleezza Rice, supported by AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobbying group).
Incidentally, the UAE also established another similar institute in Washington, run by Abdul Bari and Al-Nour Hamad, with the same goals and perspectives.
The Washington Institute published a report on July 2, 2025, titled:
“To Solve the Conflict in Sudan, Combine the Jeddah and Quartet Tracks: U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE”
It’s worth noting that the Quartet meeting was initially set for July 20, but was postponed to July 29, 2025, in Washington.
The report reinforces and justifies the Quartet’s intervention in Sudan. But why?
According to the report, the four countries have a shared and urgent interest in confronting the regional security consequences of ongoing conflict in Sudan — including mass displacement, arms trafficking, rising terrorism, the spillover of violence to the Sahel and Great Lakes, and the reemergence of the former regime and ideological Islamists.
On another note, the report says the Quartet shares Washington’s concern over Russia and Iran exploiting the vacuum left by institutional collapse in Sudan to expand their security and economic presence, through local proxies or direct agreements.
These, then, are the justifications the Jewish-run Washington Institute presents for Quartet involvement in Sudan.
This consensus among the four states forms a solid diplomatic base for joint action, as the report puts it.

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If the above reasons are the basis for Quartet intervention, then what’s the path to resolution?
The report proposes merging the Jeddah and Quartet tracks. It notes the Jeddah platform began in May 2023 as indirect negotiations focused on humanitarian issues.
Although lacking enforcement mechanisms, it still enjoys legitimacy and acceptance by the Sudanese military.
It also states that the Geneva initiative, launched by U.S. envoy Tom Perriello in late 2024, failed because the Sudanese army refused to participate — especially due to UAE involvement.
Geneva, it argues, suffers from geographical and political distance from the stakeholders, while Jeddah is closer in both senses. The Quartet, meanwhile, has the political clout to enforce commitments.
Therefore, the report suggests that merging the two would produce a hybrid formula — combining local legitimacy with international pressure.
Based on that, the report offers four recommendations — the same ones being carried now by delegations to Port Sudan to convince the leadership. U.S. envoy Mossad Boulos is promoting them. They are:

Joint Political Declaration: The Quartet, African Union, and IGAD issue a joint statement recognizing Jeddah as the sole umbrella for resolving the conflict.

Unified Administrative Body: Establish an executive secretariat in Jeddah comprising the Quartet, UN, AU, and Sudanese civil society representatives.

Binding Legal Legitimacy: Convert the Jeddah declaration into a binding political agreement through a UN Security Council resolution, with UN envoy Ramtane Lamamra coordinating and planning.

Civil Society Integration: Genuinely include tribal leaders, minorities, and NGOs to prevent militarization or hijacking of the process by external agents.

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These are the recommendations — and they reflect the features of a settlement they seek to impose, much like the 1994 Dayton Agreement, where the U.S. imposed peace in Bosnia through a combination of military force, diplomatic coercion, and control of the negotiation process.
The Dayton model has since become a textbook example of how to impose peace — not through traditional mediation, but through pressure and force.
So are we now facing a “Sudanese Dayton”?
Or will the Quartet’s plan fail like previous platforms before it?
They are now trying to impose a modified Dayton model, and multiple scenarios are being prepared accordingly — which we’ll explore in the next part!

Note:
Do these recommendations and that report remind you of the “Pathway to National Dialogue in Sudan” paper issued by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) back on August 13, 2013?
It was written by Princeton N. Lyman and Jon Temin, calling for a Sudanese-led national dialogue.
Same structure, same resemblance…
That paper, and the ideas it contained, ultimately led to Sudan’s division.
Ironically, it also came from Washington, and it was intense U.S. diplomatic and political pressure that led to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

To be continued…