While the Straits of Hormuz are the immediate global focus of the death-match between Iran’s IRGC and the Trump-Netanyahu axis of destruction, breaths are baited on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula where the Houthis, from their strongholds in north-west Yemen, have their missiles trained on that other crucial chokepoint, the Bab-al-Mandab straits at the southern end of the Red Sea.

With the high geopolitical stakes involved, and that additional threat in play for global shipping, there is additional impetus to Saudi Arabia’s imperative to secure its influence over Sudan. Saudi Arabia will be seeking to reassert what analysts benignly describe as “state power” in Sudan, favouring control by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) over the east/centre, and a unitary state that can secure the Red Sea littoral. 

What ‘state power’ means for the Sudanese people is clear only the extent that it does not augur well for a future end to the civil war. It certainly doesn’t mean a settlement leading to anything other than the entrenchment of the SAF regime and its now-terrorist-designated Sudanese Islamic Movement, aka the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. Watching from wherever they shelter, the Sudanese would be forgiven for feeling like the leather in a very dirty game of football. 

So far, the Houthis are sending deliberately mixed signals. Last week, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi declared that his movement stands with Iran against what he described as “US-Israeli aggression,” and that is ready for any developments in the ongoing confrontation. So far that hasn’t amounted to much. The Houthis appear to be holding their fire—unwilling either to abandon their ties to the embattled Republic of Iran, or to disturb the relative calm that has settled between them and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since its Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman did his own deal with Iran back in 2023. That deal has given the Kingdom some respite from Houthi attacks, and a bit of a pass from Iran’s retaliatory airstrikes across the Gulf region.

On the other side of the water, this ‘Gulf War 3’ poses real challenges for the SAF and its leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. As Matteo Bocca wrote for The Lowry Institute late last year, from 2023, Iran had “emerged as one of the SAF’s most important military partners. Iranian drones, advisers, and infrastructure projects, some reportedly near Port Sudan, [had] become essential to the army’s war effort. For Tehran, Sudan [was] a strategic opportunity, a Red Sea gateway and hedge against US and Gulf influence. For the SAF, Iran [was] a lifeline at a moment when other sources of support [were] evaporating.

Now Iran is locked in its own battle for survival and its once-plentiful supply of cheap drones, and its ability to supply to them, could well be severely curtailed. That pressure could well push Burhan more closely into the arms of Saudi Arabia—and Egypt and Turkey—all of whom favour a ‘state power’ solution for Sudan. That would see Sudan more deeply embedded in a congested Red Sea–Gulf–Iran security theatre, with the SAF as the vessel for a “Red Sea security” camp dominated by those other camps. 

One possible consequence of this will be additional pressure on Burhan to distance himself from the Islamists so deeply embedded within his own ‘deep state’. Already there are signs of internal tension. Last week Sudanese authorities arrested Enagi Abdullah, a prominent Islamist leader and a commander in the paramilitary groups fighting alongside the army. His arrest followed an address he gave to military volunteers and Islamist-leaning fighters, in which he declared his group’s support for Iran and strong backing for the Palestinian movement Hamas. 

And in the same week, a former vice-president and the head of the Shura Council of Sudan’s dissolved National Congress Party, Osman Mohamed Yousuf Kibir, found himself scrambling to deny the authenticity of a leaked video in which he appeared to General Burhan, claiming that Islamists had urged Burhan to “crush” protesters in 2019 and hand power to them.

One way and another, the US-Israeli attack on Iran has thrown all of Sudan’s chips into the air and the only losers at this crazy craps table are, as usual, the millions of people who are dying, hungry, or displaced. 

© Eurasia Review