The EconomistDecember 21st 2019 Middle East & Africa 752 lic offering of Saudi Aramco, the state oil
giant, they began talking to Iran through
intermediaries this autumn. They are also
trying to wind down a war in Yemen
against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels that
has cost the kingdom dearly and left Yemen
even less stable than before.
If the Gulf states feel vulnerable, they
believe Iran feels the same way. A rise in
fuel prices triggered a week of fierce na-
tionwide protests in November. Hundreds
of people were killed in the ensuing crack-
down, the bloodiest unrest since the birth
of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Abroad,
Iran looks overstretched. The protests
sweeping across Iraq and Lebanon are not,
as hopeful American and Saudi officials in-
sist, simply a revolt against Iranian influ-
ence. Citizens of both countries have a long
list of grievances. But they have directed
some of their anger at Iran’s closest region-
al allies. Iraqi protesters want an end to
Iran’s meddling in their politics. Many Leb-
anese are bitterly disappointed in Hassan
Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, the Ira-
nian-backed militia and political party,
who has smeared protesters as foreign-
funded agents.
Sometimes it’s personal
Talking is one thing; making deals is an-
other. For a start, the Gulf states are not a
monolith. Saudi Arabia may be willing to
forgive Qatar its transgressions. The uaeis
less keen to: it views political Islamists
(whom Qatar supported for years) as a
grave threat. The Emiratis insist there is no
daylight between them and the Saudis. An-
war Gargash, the minister of state for for-
eign affairs, says any talk to the contrary is
Qatari disinformation meant to “split the
ranks”. Again, though, officials take a dif-
ferent tone in private. Diplomats also point
to personal animus between the leaders of
Qatar and the uae.
Hopes for a deal with Iran are even more
fanciful. Faced with dissent at home, the
Iranians are likely to see any concessions
abroad as a show of weakness. Qassem Su-
leimani, the architect of Iran’s regional
policy, spent weeks in Iraq this autumn
helping to co-ordinate a ruthless crack-
down on protesters. Nor is Mr Trump likely
to ease his “maximum pressure” cam-
paign, despite a prisoner swap between the
two countries in December. “See, we can
make a deal together,” Mr Trump tweeted
afterwards. Then his administration im-
posed sanctions on Iran’s largest shipping
company and airline.
The next year or so could bring a change
of leaders in America and, perhaps, Saudi
Arabia. The Iranian president, Hassan Rou-
hani, will be a lame duck in his final full
year in power. Football matches and furtive
messages are a start. But it will probably
take deeper political changes to break the
Gulf’s years-old impasses. 7F
or nearlythree decades Omar al-Ba-
shir’s regime butchered and plundered.
Since 2010 the former Sudanese president
has evaded an arrest warrant from the In-
ternational Criminal Court (icc) for war
crimes and genocide in the Darfur region.
In Khartoum his Islamist government
would flog women for wearing trousers
and kill protesters in the streets. After he
was ousted in a coup in April, leaving be-
hind an economy in crisis and a country
awash with armed groups, many hoped he
would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
On December 14th a Sudanese court
convicted Mr Bashir, aged 75, of money-
laundering and corruption after $130m was
found in suitcases in his home. But he was
sentenced only to two years in a “reform fa-
cility” after the court said he was too old to
go to prison. One commentator in Sudan
said it had, in effect, put him in a nursing
home. Residents of Darfur dismissed the
verdict as the work of a “political court”,
says Mohamed Haggar of the region’s hu-
man-rights commission. The Sudanese
Professionals Association (spa), a civil-
society coalition that spearheaded the
protest movement leading to Mr Bashir’s
fall, welcomed the ruling but said it was
“certainly not the end of the day”.
In Sudan the task of bringing powerful
people to justice is an especially fraught
part of a delicate democratic transition. For
now, says Jonas Horner of the InternationalCrisis Group, a think-tank, the interim gov-
ernment appears to be “trying to avoid
rocking the boat”. In his verdict the judge
noted that Mr Bashir’s regime had in the
past executed someone for the same crime.
By contrast, institutions including the ju-
diciary have acted with restraint since Mr
Bashir’s overthrow, notes Harry Verhoe-
ven, the author of a book on Sudan. Re-
specting a law that prohibits jailing people
over 70 is one sign of this. So is the govern-
ment’s decision to put Mr Bashir on trial for
corruption before dealing with graver char-
ges, such as crimes against humanity.
The former president will soon find
himself in the dock again. He has been
charged with ordering the killing of protes-
ters and recently appeared in court over his
role in the coup that brought him to power
in 1989. Sudan is also pondering whether to
hand him over to the iccin The Hague, as
survivors of the genocide in Darfur de-
mand. Abdalla Hamdok, an economist who
now leads the government, has signalled
that he would like to do so. But Lieutenant-
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads
the 11-member Sovereign Council which
oversees the largely civilian administra-
tion, has refused.
The disagreement reflects a tug-of-war
between generals and civilians in the tran-
sitional government. The civilians think
that Sudan’s judiciary is ill equipped for
such a complex and expensive case. They
also want to mend Sudan’s relations with
the wider world, which would be helped by
its co-operation with the icc. But many of
the generals would prefer to keep control of
the judicial process for fear that, abroad,
their former boss might reveal information
that would damage them. General Burhan,
for instance, is accused of co-ordinating
army and militia attacks in Darfur at the
height of the conflict in the early 2000s.
Equally hard will be holding anyone ac-
countable for the slaughter of more than
100 protesters in Khartoum in June by the
Rapid Support Forces (rsf), a paramilitary
group. An inquiry set up in September is
due to report its findings this month. The
rsf’s leader, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo
(known as Hemedti), is General Burhan’s
deputy on the council and is widely be-
lieved to be responsible for the bloodshed.
“Everybody knows Hemedti was in it with
all his ten fingers,” says a foreign diplomat.
But many question the independence of
the committee leading the inquiry and ex-
pect it will stop short of blaming Mr Dagalo.
That may be because Mr Dagalo com-
mands about 40,000 armed men and could
derail the transition if threatened. “In gov-
ernment there is a preference for stability
over divisive, if just, verdicts,” says Mr Hor-
ner. For now the old regime’s many victims
may have to put up with Mr Bashir spend-
ing a few months in a rest home. They will
not be satisfied. 7ADDIS ABABA
Two years in a rest home for Sudan’s
former tyrantJustice in SudanMercy for the
mighty
Bashir’s gilded cage