BEIRUT — The US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, accusing him of “destabilizing Sudan and undermining the democratic transition.”

Washington’s blatant involvement in Sudan exposes the US double standards that claim promoting the values of human rights and democracy while their primary goal is to secure its colonial interests. 

The official spokesman for the Sudanese Armed Forces stated that the US “unjust” sanctions will not deter the army from “performing its legal and constitutional duty to defend Sudan.”

During the past years, it has been proven that whenever there is a major development in any military arena, the US administration intervenes to obstruct this progress, coinciding too with an obvious Israeli intervention. 

The US “carrot and stick” policy will not have a direct impact on the course of the ongoing war – whether at political, security or military levels – given previous experiences; sanctions on the Omar al-Bashir regime only complicated Washington’s relations with Khartoum.

The sanctions coincided with the advance of the Sudanese Armed Forces in Al-Jazeera State and their control of the strategic city of Wad Madani, while they were trying to expel the Rapid Support Forces from the capital Khartoum towards Darfur State, despite attempts to disperse the army by bombing residential neighborhoods and vital infrastructure. 

The most realistic option that most Sudanese analysts agree on is to militarily decide the war against what they call “rebellious group” as the main purpose of the sanctions is to break the will of the Sudanese people to prevent them from achieving decisive field progress, along with keeping Sudan under Washington’s imperialist hegemony.

Major General Abdel Hadi Abdel-Basit, a Sudanese military expert, described the sanctions as “naive and worthless sanctions,” citing the experience of the Salvation Government, which thwarted similar sanctions over 3 decades.

Abdel-Basit anticipates that the sanctions will push Sudan toward more independence and new partnerships, with Russia for example. Undeniably, what seriously worries Washington is the Sudanese-Russian rapprochement that means a drastic change in the balance of power in Africa.

What is happening in Sudan unfortunately reveals the misery of Arab national security and the impotence of all previous initiatives for a solution. Some Arab governments not only support the warring parties but also fight among themselves, just as they are doing in Sudan.

These involved governments lack the slightest level of political maturity; Sudan is completely absent from their agendas. In Syria when Washington gave them the green light, Arab delegations began to flock to Damascus to meet Al-Julani and his officials.  

Sudan is being torn apart like Libya; this opens the door to further US and Israeli interventions against the aspirations of the Sudanese people to return to security, stability and normal life. How long will the Arabs wait for the American signal to settle their own national security issues?