Latest / FDD Morning Brief / Iran's dirty hand in Sudan | feat. Ambassador Fernandez, guest hosted by Mariam Wahba

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Iran's dirty hand in Sudan | feat. Ambassador Fernandez, guest hosted by Mariam Wahba · FDD Morning Brief

• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good morning, it is Monday, April 20th.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The multi-front war in the Middle East is now 926 days old with seemingly no end inside.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Mariam Wabba, filling in for Jonathan Schanzer, and welcome to the FDD Morning Brief.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Before we get into the today's headlines, I have to tell you about today's guest.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thrilled to be joined by Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, a man with a resume like no other in Washington, D.C.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: He served as the U.S. charged affairs in Hartune from 2007 to 2009 in the shadows of the therefore genocide.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: He later served as U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Yelgini, Africa's only speaking country.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Africa's only Spanish speaking country, excuse me, which was then one of Africa's top-oil producers.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: He also served in diplomatic positions across the globe, including in Amman, Kabul, Guadamada,
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: The ambassador speaks fluent Arabic and Spanish, and while I can't comment on his Spanish, I can say that his Arabic is unmatched, even by native standards.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's currently the vice president of memory, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which produces some of the most indispensable open source analysis on the Middle East and beyond.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna be taking a hard look at the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, you guessed it, the student East Civil War.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ambassador Fernandez joins us live in just a few minutes to stick around.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: and now for today's headlines.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: The US negotiation team is heading to Islamabad for round two of US Iran talks, and they're opening under considerably worse conditions than round one.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Iran reclosed the Shade of Hormuz over weekend, framing it as retaliation for the US Naval Blockade of its ports.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: From my vantage point, this is to Iran's opening bid going into that negotiation room.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Round one, ended with Vice President Vance walking out empty handed and saying that the next move was Iran's.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Iran just made that move.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's leverage or sabotage is what round two will answer.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And a reminder for those who didn't mark their calendars, the Pakistan mediated ceasefire currently in place, technically expires this Wednesday.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: headline number two, Egypt is working with Pakistan on lasting U.S. Iran peace, says Egyptian Foreign Minister.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia met on the sidelines of the entire diplomacy form in Turkey just as frequent to coordinate a second round of the U.S. Iran talks.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Egypt being in a room makes sense on paper.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cairo has been a regional mediator since
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: What Egypt brokering peace alongside Turkey and Pakistan war is me just a little bit.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a data point in a much bigger story that we continue to track it after you do.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that is Cairo's ideological flimsyness and its chronic susceptibility to Islamist orbits.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: President C.C.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: built his legitimacy over the last decade on being the antidote to political Islam.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Coordinating with the likes of Ankara and Islamabad on the region's biggest open file raises real questions about how durable that posture is.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And headline number three, Sudan enters its fourth year of war and the world's most severe humanitarian crisis.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is the story that keeps getting varied.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: This past week marked three years since the war broke out between Sudanese armed forces and the rapid support forces in Sudan.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: The numbers alone are devastating and estimated 400,000 have been killed and that's a conservative estimate.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Millions have been displaced internally while millions more have sought refuge in neighboring countries including Egypt.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: More than 30 million people need humanitarian assistance, making this the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Famine has been confirmed in at least two areas, and yet this crisis keeps getting pushed off the front pages.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: As the essay F and the RSF continue at it, I can't help but quote Henry Kissinger.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It really is a pity both sides can't lose.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that brings me to my guest.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Joining me live is Ambassador Alberto Fernandez of Memory.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ambassador, welcome to the FUD morning grief.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, pleasure to be on with you.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Always good to see you, sir.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's dive right in.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you recently published a piece with memory titled of forgotten Sudanese war enters its fourth year.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've obviously tracked Sudan very closely for decades.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You were in cartoon during the Dark War crisis.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Three years in, what have we actually learned about this war?
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what does it tell us about where it's going?
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, unfortunately Sudan has been at war for most of its history as an independent country overwhelmingly.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most of these wars were in regions, the war with the southerners, with the south Sudanese, the Darfur War.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This has been kind of Sudan's world war.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been fought in many different parts of the country.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a complex thing.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a struggle between generals.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: About power.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh, insights to Dan about, you know, which kleptocratic, uh, violent group gets to be top dog.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's, it's about the generals and people who used to be the soldiers and the privates and the sergeants.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then it's a regional conflict as well, drawing, you know, a range of countries for different reasons.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned Egypt, Egypt plays a role in this war and many,
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I mean, I'll I can't help but comment on your point about this is a war between generals and I would argue it did start as a war between generals and in the aftermath of the sheer, but I think it's become a lot more than just a war between generals, you have all kinds of foreign intervention happening at the moment, can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, yes, there's also an ideological element to the war of kind of the more Islamist, more anti-Slamist, although people play games with those labels.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But basically the RSF, the John Joey former paramilitary are supported by the United Arab Emirates and some other countries,
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: in the region ranging from Haftar's Libya to Chad to Ethiopia.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one reason, one of several reasons why Egypt favors the army, also Egypt tends to favor our Arab armies.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Egypt favors the military regime, the army regime, and then those countries that are pro-Slamist favor the army regime, because they see the army regime as the kind of the protector of Islamism in Sudan.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Turkey, Qatar,
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pakistan are all supporters of the Army regime of the South, Sudanese armed forces regime, and Iran as well.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So basically that's that's kind of what you have.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have people making decisions for to support one side or the other for ideological reasons.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: and also for Poropio, maybe more local reasons related to their relationship with another country or their relationship with the center with Sudan as well.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, for example, Ethiopia supports the RSF and Eritrea Ethiopia's enemy is close to the South regime, so there's kind of wheels within wheels that happen in these types of conflicts.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, and I do want to extract something from you just said about Iran supporting the staff for those stupid needs on forces.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You actually posted something over the weekend that I think a lot of people missed.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: A woman was arrested at LAX Airport for allegedly brokering Iranian drone sales, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition to the SIF.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's in the fog of war, I think, it's hard to kind of get a clear understanding of how foreign intervention or how in the various actors such Iran are sticking the finger in places like Sudan.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is Iran have to gain in intervention, in backing the SAF?
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's several things.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, Sudan, Iran has a relationship with the Islamist regime in Sudan, going back many years.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was in Sudan, which was, you know, a long time ago, there were sanctions on Sudan of, you know, preventing Sudan from getting military equipment.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Iran would violate that regularly to give support to the Bashir regime.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the Bashir regime, the Bashir regime broke ties with Iran because of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia pressured Bashir to basically switch sides.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was during the years of the Yemen war when Iran was on one side and Saudi Arabia was on the other side over Yemen.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so Bashir switched.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now what's happened is basically, Saf is caught in this war.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Saf, the Sudanese armed forces wants to win.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They'll take help from whoever they can.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're all friends in Tehran want to help them.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why not?
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tehran, the Iranian regime has long-standing interest to project power regionally, including the Africa.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We think of the Levant.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: We think of Yemen, the Horn of Africa, but they also want to do that on the African continent.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is part of that.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... that's why they do it and and the arrested happen a really interesting of course because this is a person resident in the united states but we already kind of new there been videos or pictures of more agar more agar drones iranian drones as well as turkish drones by the way uh... in the hands of the army so we kind of new that there was uh... in iranian connection we've known that for a while what this arrested Los Angeles revealed was the depth
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... the breath and depth of the relationship it was not just drones and of course the bizarre the role that uh... a u.s. resident plane in this uh... transaction and it's in the tens of millions of dollars at least that we know about the drone i think contract was seventy million dollars alone makes you wonder you know who was who was footing this bill for uh... the suit and he's army regime to pay to run
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hearing you talk about this and this is a conflict I've followed now for a little over a year.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't help but something our VP of research doctor David a doesn't accept to me a while ago.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's editing something a road on Sudan.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: He goes, the Sudanese Civil War makes the Syrian Civil War look like a piece of cake when you're trying to understand all the foreign fingers inside of hard to admit the moment.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you a silly question and I'll get back to the drones and just a sec.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why, forgive me for the silly question, why hasn't neither side been able to win?
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, tracking the battlefield, RSEC moves into a territory, gets liberated by the SAF.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's, you know, watchers think there's positive movement, but it just seems like there's been no pivotal turning point.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, people forget this year's size of Sudan.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Sudan was, for example, a picture of a map of Sudan was superimposed over the center of the United States, it would range from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a huge country.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The current battles that are being fought in Cordofein, which is one region of Sudan, Cordofein is the size of Germany.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So today is a very, very large country.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the largest countries in the world.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And both militaries have problems.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Army...
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: used to rely on the judgment on the RSF as their foot soldiers, you know, the army was as alphan happens in the Arab world.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Top heavy, a lot of fat cat generals stealing from the government in cartoon, but you know, the lower ranks go and fight in these dirty wars against the south Sudanese or against the dark Koreans, but these lower ranks were the people where that's where the
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The RSF was in a way the foot soldiers of SAF, the guys who did the dirty work, the guys that would kill civilians, the guys that would be unleashed in Darfur to kill African tribes.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why it's kind of a, there's a class question.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So both sides have deep problems.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The RSF,
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their ability is to be raiders, is to be kind of long distance, hit, and run.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're poorly managed, they're poorly led, they're brave, they're effective as bandits and raiders.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're also very poorly disciplined.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've committed, of course, all kinds of horrific human rights abuses.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So both sides have these kind of basic problems.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a huge country.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Both militaries are deeply flawed.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: They continue to be flawed in the war.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Both sides, basically, as the war is progressed and the conflict is spread, they rely more on more on irregular forces.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could say, both sides have been delishaized.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they rely on local warlords, local kind of pseudo-criminal elements, bandits both.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: the army and the RSF.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We just had just in the last few days a main leader of the RSF switch sides and joined the army.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's a true genuid.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's from the one of the Darfur Arab tribes, the same conglomeration as Hamidti as the head of the RSF, a rival tribe, but the same
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Switch sides, maybe he was bribed, maybe he didn't like the fact that he, you know, he'd been passed over for position recently, Switch sides.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it just shows you both militaries are fragile institutions.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The army itself has a problem between Islamists and non Islamists within the ranks of the army, which is also a point of contention.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, and I think that's one of the primary primary motivating factors of both sides seeking foreign intervention.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to your point about the SAF Islamist versus non-Islamist, they're struggling with their leaning on even things like the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants from the Bashir regime and how that's impacting support coming from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's go back quickly to the drones.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: companies have sold drones to both sides and I'm kind of pinpointing the drones here because I think it changed the battlefield dynamics just a little bit.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you agree?
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, this is Africa's first big drone war.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Drone separately, previously, they were used in the Libya war, and of course, they were used elsewhere in the Sahel, but not at this level at this sheer size.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, Turkey, you know, the drones that may have acquired, probably were not shipped by Turkey for the RSF.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: They may have been shipped to somebody
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, but drones that are being used on both sides, um, you know, and the army does seem like it's slowly gaining the upper hand.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if I had to put a trajectory and I've written about this for memory from 2023, that the army eventually would be able to prevail just because
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a rotten army that is semi-disciplined is better than a rotten RSF, which is ill-disciplined, right?
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the discipline and foreign support maybe would prevail over time.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That seems to be happening, although the war is not anywhere near ending.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's an argument that others have made.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the SAF forts and all Islamism and all is in no way comparable to something like the RSF John Joede.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That actually pivots us to some U.S. policy talk, which is really the meat of this conversation.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell me a little bit about how the Biden administration looked at this conflict and how it differs from the Trump administration and how it's posturing itself for the Civil War.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Biden administration was catastrophic when it came to Sudan.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The many of us believe that the trigger, the key point that led to the war was two years, actually almost two years before the war, it was October 25th, 2021.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the army overthrew this week, interim civilian government, the one led by a civilian prime minister, Dr. Abdullah Hamdok.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: the bitter arrival in between the two military factions that led to the war breaking out in 2023.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Biden administration did absolutely nothing what that happened.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't put sanctions on anyone.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't, you know, they just...
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: sat on their hands.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: They mount some words, but very little happened.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once the war happened, they were distracted by other conflicts.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The war has always been in the shadow of other conflicts, of Ukraine, of Gaza, now in Iran.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Trump administration, I think, has paid more attention to
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think there's been kind of a greater job voting kind of talking to people, talking to partners.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it hasn't led to a lot.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was this conference in Berlin that just happened to get additional aid for the student of these people.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's certainly a worthy thing to do.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on the ground, we haven't seen a lot that the US can do.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe there isn't a lot the United States can do.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: a solution to a conflict where both sides want military victory, especially the army.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: At this point, RSF has kind of lost cartoon, retreated to its base areas.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: RSF would likely welcome a ceasefire that would consolidate its rule over what it holds.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But SAF is committed to complete military victory.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: They will never accept, they say, never accept the existence of a rival army or the division of Sudan.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they're empowered in that position by their allies, particularly each at that is a talking point by the Egyptians and that the Sudanese sovereignty cannot be tethered in any way.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we could talk about this for hours, but let's move along.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't have you here not ask you about Iran as we're entering phase.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: to the negotiations or around two of the negotiations.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Over the last week, you've asserted that maintaining the naval blockade on Iranian ports while opening the street of our moves allowing oil prices to come down is really the main crux of how the US, of how Washington can inflict pain on Iran.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you still hold that belief going into, going into around two?
• 20:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I think that the U.S. is well positioned to continue their name on blockade.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today we had also this decision by the administration on cutting off money supply dollar supplies and aid to Iraq, which is very significant because Iraq serves as a kind of a conduit for smuggling sanctions busting and money laundering for the Iranian regime.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have pressure on Iraq, which is this kind of back door for the Iranian regime, that increases the pressure on the regime.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The question, of course, for us is whether we are patient enough to continue this, right, whether we'll get distracted and say, you know, Americans have short attention spans and we'll decide, okay, we've done this enough, we're bored, we want to go do something else.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the Iranian regime, this is existential.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Literally, but you need to continue to do this over time.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in the US, the Washington has political costs to re-engagement, political cost to re-entering, restarting the strikes while Iran is, is excellent at being patient and waiting us out as they've done time and time again.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's it.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Always insightful.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: A pleasure.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: always so much to learn from the ambassador.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, that is it for Monday's show.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: For more on Sudan, the Iran War and everything else in between head to FDD.org or take a scroll through our many social media channels.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're feeling particularly generous and want to support this work, you can make your tax deductible donation at FDD.org forward slash invest.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me today.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Mario Mava signing off for FDD.