Washington helps whitewash Sudan’s war crimes

Ben Rhodes, a former US deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, famously called Washington’s foreign policy establishment ‘the Blob’ to describe its entrenched ecosystem of think tanks, former officials, journalists and funders that perpetuate a narrow vision of power, global order and legitimate actors, writes Amgad Eltayeb in an Al Jazeera analysis. 'This apparatus not only sustains conservative inertia but also defines the limits of what is considered possible in policy. In Sudan’s two-and-a-half-year conflict, these self-imposed boundaries are proving fatal. A particularly insidious practice within the Blob is the invocation of moral and rhetorical equivalence, portraying the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) as comparable adversaries. This ostensibly balanced US stance, evident in establishment analyses and diplomatic statements, represents not an impartial default but a deliberate political construct. By equating a criminalised, externally backed militia with a national army tasked with state duties, it sanitises RSF atrocities, recasting them as mere wartime exigencies rather than orchestrated campaigns of ethnic cleansing, urban sieges and terror.’

This notion, says, Eltayeb, has dominated US and international discourse on Sudan’s war since its outbreak when the then-US ambassador to Khartoum, John Godfrey, tweeted in the first month of the war a condemnation of RSF sexual violence but vaguely attributed it to unspecified ‘armed actors’. ‘By refraining from explicitly identifying the perpetrators despite extensive documentation of the RSF’s responsibility for systematic rapes, gang rapes and sexual slavery, his wording essentially dispersed accountability across the warring parties and contributed to a climate of institutional impunity. RSF militiamen carry out their atrocities with confidence, knowing that responsibility will be blurred and its burden scattered across the parties’.  Eltayeb states in the Al Jazeera analysis that the Blob’s institutions often prioritise access over veracity. ‘Framing the conflict symmetrically safeguards diplomatic ties with regional allies, particularly the RSF’s patrons in the United Arab Emirates while projecting an aura of neutrality. However, neutrality amid asymmetric criminality is not objectivity; it is tacit complicity. Elevating an internationally enabled militia to parity with a sovereign military confers undue legitimacy on the RSF, whose methods – including the besieging and starving of cities such as el-Fasher, the systematic use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war, the deployment of drones against mosques and markets, and acts of genocide – are demonstrably systematic, as corroborated by investigative journalism and human rights documentation. To subsume these under “actions by both parties” distorts empirical reality and erodes mechanisms for accountability.’

Eltayeb says that compounding this is the Blob’s uncritical assimilation of RSF propaganda into its interpretive frameworks. ‘The RSF has strategically positioned itself as a vanguard against “Islamists”, a veneer that conceals its historical criminal nature, patronage networks, illicit resource extraction and foreign sponsorship.’ In a similar vein, Eltayeb notes  in the Al Jazeera analysis that the RSF has publicly expressed sympathy and strong support for Israel, even offering to resettle displaced Palestinians from Gaza in a bid to align with US interests. ‘This discourse serves as an overture to the Blob, leveraging shared geopolitical priorities to portray the RSF as a pragmatic partner in regional stability.’ He points out that certain establishment pundits and diplomats have echoed this narrative, casting the RSF as a viable bulwark against an ‘Islamist resurgence’, thereby endowing a force implicated in war crimes with strategic and ethical credibility. ‘When the Blob internalises this “anti-Islamist” trope as analytical shorthand, it legitimises an insurgent militia’s rationalisations as geopolitical truths, marginalising the reality of the war and the Sudanese who repudiate militarised binaries and sectarian lenses.’ To counter the Blob’s pathologies, Eltayeb states that a paradigm shift is imperative. ‘Where evidence is found of systematic rights abuses, international rhetoric and actions should reflect this imbalance through targeted sanctions and disruptions while avoiding generic “both-sides” statements. He believes policymakers must dismantle enablers. ‘Rhetorical and legal measures must be matched by enforcement through transparent embargo oversight, flight interdictions and sanctions on supply chains. Justice without implementation offers only solace to victims.'

Full Al Jazeera analysis