The Quartet Is Now a Thing of the Past… But Why? (2-2)

As I See

Adel El-Baz

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At the end of the first part of this article, I asked: Why is Abu Dhabi so insistent on excluding the army from the transitional period? And why did it fight so hard to insert the idea of a “Foundational Government” into the Quartet statement in Washington—going so far as to confront both Egypt and Saudi Arabia on this issue, and ultimately blowing up the Quartet in the process?

Abu Dhabi believes that the army is under the influence of Islamists, whom it relentlessly hunts without remorse. Keeping the army in the picture means the Islamists will continue to influence any future political arrangement. Even if Abu Dhabi succeeds in reinstalling its clients in power, the situation would remain unstable.

Removing the army from governance would weaken the country as a whole, and might even accelerate its fragmentation—making it easier to control. Abu Dhabi assumes that sidelining the army would allow militias to grow again and seize control of parts of the country, until they regain the strength to pounce on the center once more.

If the “Remove the Army” project succeeds, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are transformed into a recognized political front, Sudan will head straight into a fully “Yemeni” scenario:
militias, foreign influence, a constitutional vacuum, and de facto partition. The insistence on excluding the army from the transition and imposing a dual governance reality is nothing but a carbon copy of the Yemeni blueprint: weaken the army, empower the militias, and plunge the state into endless fragmentation.

In Yemen, the collapse of the army was the gateway to the collapse of the state. In Sudan, some want to bring down the army in order to bring down Sudan. But what they fail to grasp is that history cannot be replicated with artificial intelligence: Sudanese still carry the genetic memory of resistance—the same spirit that once toppled empires upon which the sun never set.

The Sudanese army has withstood the project of dismantlement and toppling. Now, after the RSF failed to achieve military victory, the time has come for political deception—through the trick of a “Foundational Government,” a political cover for the militia, paving the way for the RSF to seize the state under a formula scripted in Abu Dhabi and rubber-stamped by the oblivious or the complicit.

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As for why Abu Dhabi is so keen on breathing life into the stillborn “Foundational Government,” Dr. Amjad Farid offered a useful insight in an article yesterday. He wrote:

> “The UAE’s position is an attempt to confer official status on the RSF, to present it on the international stage as a ‘government’ rather than a militia. The goal is to turn the war from a conflict between a legitimate government and rebels into a conflict between two ‘governments,’ allowing the RSF to later sit at the negotiating table as an equal party.”

I can add this: if Abu Dhabi succeeds in marketing the “Foundational Government,” it will secure a political presence for the militias without their “kadmool” (the scarf masking their identity). This step is crucial, because in the current international climate, no one will accept a militia branded with “genocide” and “war crimes” at the helm of any civilian or military authority.

Abu Dhabi needs a foothold in governance in the near future, during the transitional period, in order to engineer the political landscape internally using political money—the same tactic it applied in Tunisia, where it toppled the revolutionary government and installed one subservient to it under Kais Saied.

Abu Dhabi knows that its civilian allies in the “Sumood” coalition are politically frail and lightweight; they cannot serve its agenda, whether it’s fighting Islamists or looting resources. The “Janjaweed” are better suited: they are masters of plunder and professional killers, fully capable of executing Abu Dhabi’s agenda. All they need is to trade the scarf for a suit under the façade of a phantom “Foundational Government.”

This is why Abu Dhabi pushed so hard to enshrine “Foundational Government” in the Quartet statement—to grant it early international legitimacy. Yet malicious schemes often backfire: the entire world refused to recognize the illegitimate “orphan government,” which died in its crib before taking a single breath.

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The first question we raised in this article can also be posed regarding Egypt’s stance: why does Egypt side with the Sudanese army? What is its interest?

Egypt knows that militias cannot govern a state. Its experience with the Sudanese army has shown that only the army can produce stability. Historically—before and after independence—Egypt never faced a threat from the south; its southern border has always been safe. In moments of danger, Sudan has been Egypt’s back, the support it leans on.

The army Egypt now defends as a matter of principle is the same national institution whose soldiers fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Egyptian troops in every war throughout history.

Egypt understands that if it leaves its southern borders at the mercy of militias and their foreign backers, its national security will be in grave danger. Israel, despite peace agreements, would be entrenched in its flank. Add to this the ongoing chaos in Libya, and Egypt would find itself encircled by fire: Israel to the north, south, and west.

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The UAE is betting on quick influence and political money, while Egypt is betting on historical stability and entrenched national security networks. The struggle here is not only over Sudan, but also over who will lead the region in shaping the post-chaos order.

The Quartet that never convened was more truthful than any statement. Its very absence said: political fraud cannot be imposed with money, and maps are drawn by history, not by checkbooks.

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Egypt stands where it does not only in defense of Sudan and its army, but in defense of itself—its security, its leadership, and its history. In doing so, it may risk losing the UAE as a partner, a source of billions in aid and its top investor. But Egypt will not trade its history for money, especially when “interlopers in history” attempt to bend its course with their wealth.

Money may buy a false reality, ruled by illusions of power and dreams of dominance, but it cannot buy history. It cannot plant roots in a land where it has never cast a shadow nor found belonging.