{"id":60516,"date":"2026-02-05T20:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=60516"},"modified":"2026-02-05T20:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T17:15:06","slug":"who-has-the-right-to-determine-sudans-future-a-reading-of-the-uaes-guardianship-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/who-has-the-right-to-determine-sudans-future-a-reading-of-the-uaes-guardianship-discourse\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Has the Right to Determine Sudan\u2019s Future?.. A Reading of the UAE\u2019s Guardianship Discourse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Suleiman Al-Aqeeli<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates\u2019 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\u2019s future should be determined by what it describes as \u201cextremist groups,\u201d including those linked to what it calls the \u201cMuslim Brotherhood.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s political system \u2014 in clear contradiction to the principles of national sovereignty and the right of peoples to self-determination.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From an international legal perspective, no state has the right to restrict another people\u2019s choices in selecting their political system. Nor is it legitimate to employ concepts such as counterterrorism and \u201cextremist groups\u201d \u2014 often broad and politically instrumentalized terms \u2014 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In its official rhetoric, the UAE claims it rejects \u201cforeign interference in Arab affairs\u201d 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u201cMuslim Brotherhood\u201d and \u201cterrorism.\u201d 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\u2019s narrow view of Islamic political movements, nor is there Arab or international consensus supporting the UAE\u2019s framing of Sudan\u2019s political landscape.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fundamental question ignored by these isolated and controversial Abu Dhabi narratives is this: Who holds the authority to define \u201cextremist groups\u201d 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\u20132021 period.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the UAE raises the banner of \u201cfighting the Muslim Brotherhood\u201d 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 \u201cillegitimate\u201d in Abu Dhabi\u2019s view \u2014 even if it were the result of elections or national consensus. This effectively shifts political authority outside Sudan\u2019s borders, rather than leaving it within Sudanese society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

International law does not grant any state the right to \u201cchoose\u201d among political parties or movements in another country, nor does it allow it to impose a specific model of governance \u2014 whether civilian, military, Islamic, or secular \u2014 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the UAE insists that the Muslim Brotherhood cannot play any role in Sudan\u2019s future, it moves beyond the role of an observer or potential mediator into that of a political arbiter deciding who is \u201cacceptable\u201d and who is \u201cunacceptable\u201d in Sudan\u2019s 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the UAE\u2019s 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But a just regional order cannot be built on one state exercising guardianship over the political systems of others, regardless of claims about protecting \u201cstability\u201d or the \u201ccivilian order.\u201d 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 \u2014 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Suleiman Al-Aqeeli The United Arab Emirates\u2019 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\u2019s future should be determined by what it describes as \u201cextremist groups,\u201d including those linked to what it calls the \u201cMuslim Brotherhood.\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60517,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60516\/revisions\/60517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}