What happened in Iraq is about to play itself out again in Sudan, with likely more disastrous consequences, writes Abdel-Moneim Said One can never be certain that an impending political and strategic storm will actually break. Any number of unforeseen and incalculable factors might step in to dispel the clouds, or there may be others who are equally troubled by a dire prognosis but possess the ability and the means to forestall disaster. Unfortunately, such prospects appear slim in the case of Sudan. True, there are visions for the peaceful handling of the possibility of secession or continued unity, depending on the results of the referendum scheduled to be held on Sudan's future. However, when has wishful thinking alone ever been able to thwart a crisis and reduce oncoming gales to tranquil breezes? Therefore, if the opening decade of the 21st century in the Middle East was the decade of Iraq, the second will be the decade of Sudan. There is a certain resemblance between the Iraqi and Sudanese cases, even if the circumstances differ considerably. The harbinger of the Iraqi inferno came with the events of 11 September, if not earlier, in the form of the neoconservatives' manifesto on the forthcoming "American century". In spite of the omens, the storm clouds accumulated. The winds blowing from the Bush administration were not the only problem. As if those were not ominous enough, the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein closed off all opportunities to help it. So the storm hit in full force, the regime fell and the dust cleared to reveal a state that was so wretchedly fragile as to provoke both sorrow and anger, and a society bound only by mutual hatred. Ten years later, after hundreds of thousands of fatalities, millions of wounded and displaced persons, and billions of dollars in losses, this Arab nation entered the Guinness Book of Records for the longest ever failure to form a government. Iraq as it once was is gone forever, and its tragedy will be felt for decades to come. However, Sudan's will be even graver. The presage to the storm over that country began a long time ago, around the middle of the 20th century. There was a brief window for salvation when the south was granted autonomy in the 1970s. But it appears that happiness is not destined for Arab countries, for not long afterwards president Nimeiri suddenly felt that he had to apply "Islamic law," as though Sudan had been a cesspool of sin and depravity for its entire history until that point. The effect, of course, was to drive Sudan towards renewed civil warfare. Meanwhile, Sudanese democracy reeled and floundered, as is its wont, and before the 1980s were out Sudan was struck by another of its habitual coups. This coup was a bit different from its predecessors. In addition to pitting the army and its military might against the chaos of civil government and corruption, it brought the establishment of an "Islamic" state. The Sudanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood had come to power and with their arrival the secession of the south became inevitable, because the civil state and the principle of equal citizenship had been booted irrevocably out the door. Much has happened in the two decades since. Khartoum drew Islamist extremists of the Bin Laden stripe, as well as Marxist revolutionaries and communist terrorists of the sort of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal. But, as history tells us, every action has a price. Sooner or later, the chickens come home to roost and bills have to be paid. And Sudan has paid very dearly, indeed. The southern independence movement escalated its pressure until it obtained an agreement permitting it to secede if it wants. Sudan was the victim of an aerial strike, merely on the basis of groundless suspicion. The Muslim Brothers have been ousted from power, even if their ideology hasn't. The revolutionaries were hunted down and turned over to the powers that demanded them. Popular uprisings and rebel movements erupted in Darfur. In response to Khartoum's handling of that situation, the international community trained its focus on the Sudanese government and filed criminal charges against the Sudanese president with the International Criminal Court. The rightness and wrongness of these developments is not the issue here. What concerns us is that the first decade of this century became prologue to the fall of the Sudanese state, or at least the Sudanese state as we know it. Sudan was founded as a state that brought many diverse ethnic groups and religions together beneath an overarching bond of citizenship. When convention and tradition and politics and might combined to place control in the hands of a single group, that concept failed to survive the test. This is precisely what happened in Iraq, where a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state fell under the control of a single sectarian group, and at times a single city. After copious bloodshed and suffering, Iraqis arrived at a power-sharing formula that severely debilitates the state. After copious bloodshed and suffering, the Sudanese arrived at the Nifasha Agreement and the threshold of partition, which seems inevitable because of the intransigence with which Khartoum clings to the ethnic and religious character of the state. It remains for us now to wait for the curtain to rise on the first chapter of the end of the Sudanese state. On what constitutional basis will the north and the south re- establish themselves? What will be the real lay of the land in the two regions, neither of which have the closest bonds with democratic traditions? More importantly, how will they handle their identity? What will it mean to be Sudanese? If you inhabit the south, will you still continue to see yourself as part of Sudan once the south becomes a separate state? History tells us quite a bit about such cases. Much is contingent upon the new leadership's ability to create a new basis for legitimacy and identity, and to steer the path away from chaos towards the consolidation of the authority of the state and the establishment of the new edifices of government. If it fails in this task, which the looming storm clouds suggest is the likelier possibility, the consequence will be further internal and external conflict. The government of the north will be brought to account for losing the south, and the government of the south will have to answer not only for the corruption in which it is steeped but also for conditions that will have deteriorated even further after the acquisition of the right to self-determination. In both cases, internal squabbles will be brutal and bitter. These will ultimately spill across borders, the first being the border between the north and the south. The Abyei region alone is charged enough to spark fighting between erstwhile "brothers" in the formerly unified state. There will also be increased tensions with Sudan's neighbours. It is no coincidence that the authorities in Khartoum, mired as they are in their current debacle, suddenly decided to dredge up the subject of the Halayeb triangle on Egypt's side of the Egyptian-Sudanese border. Nor is it a coincidence that the south has begun to complain of the behaviour of its neighbours, such as Uganda and Eritrea. The developments on these fronts -- and who can predict how many others -- will usher in the second chapter in the book of a Sudan that is no longer Sudan. More chapters will follow, all of which we will find all too familiar.
