It must be said at the outset that what follows is necessarily speculative. There is no evidence that Washington has decided to back Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), much less that such a policy shift is imminent. But enough developments involving the RSF, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Somaliland, and the Red Sea make the possibility worth considering.

The United States entered Sudan’s civil war with a fairly straightforward public position: both sides were responsible for atrocities, neither should win militarily, and the war should end through negotiation. Washington has sanctioned leaders of both camps and recently pushed for expanded international sanctions designed to force the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF back toward negotiations⁠.

But American foreign policy has a long history of changing when the strategic circumstances change. In this instance, the Iraq War provides the alarming and instructive precedent. After overthrowing Saddam Hussein and inadvertently empowering Shiite political forces closely connected to Iran, Washington spent years fighting a Sunni insurgency. It eventually concluded that some of those same Sunni forces could be useful against al-Qaeda and as a counterweight to the Shiite-dominated order it had helped create. The result was the Sunni Awakening and a remarkable reversal in American policy.

Could something similar be in the early stages of happening in Sudan?

The immediate catalyst for reconsidering the Sudanese conflict may be the revelation that the SAF apparently developed and used chemical weapons.

The Washington Post⁠ investigation published this past week examined a large cache of documents, photographs, videos, and messages allegedly obtained from Sudanese sources. More than two dozen Western intelligence officials, chemical-weapons specialists and inspectors reviewed the material. They generally considered it credible evidence of a Sudanese chemical-weapons program, although independent physical access to the sites would be necessary for definitive verification.

The material reportedly describes the production and testing of chlorine-filled munitions, including hundreds of weapons. One message from late 2024 apparently claimed that 106 chemical munitions had already been used. Other material appears to identify RSF positions as targets. The United States had already concluded in 2024 that the Sudanese military had used chemical weapons, although Washington had released few details at the time.

This is important, but to be clear it does not mean that chemical weapons have been used primarily against civilians, nor does it establish that the SAF’s chemical arsenal is comparable to Saddam Hussein’s. The evidence presently available points principally toward chlorine attacks against RSF military positions. Nevertheless, the political significance is obvious: if Washington eventually wants to argue that an SAF victory is unacceptable, as we have seen in Syria the chemical-weapons issue provides a ready-made humanitarian and legal justification.

And that brings us to the larger strategic picture: the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the Rapid Support Forces, and the Red Sea.

The RSF is not operating in isolation. The UAE has emerged as its most important external patron, although Abu Dhabi vehemently denies providing military support. The latest United Nations investigation found evidence of networks involving the UAE, Chad, Libya and Somalia supplying the RSF with weapons, equipment, logistics, training and foreign personnel.

That matters because the UAE is itself becoming an increasingly important strategic actor in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa. Emirati interests extend through ports, shipping, gold, agriculture and military facilities. Berbera in Somaliland is particularly important.

And here Israel enters the picture.

In December 2025, Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland as an independent state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar signed the recognition agreement with Somaliland’s president, explicitly linking the relationship to the spirit of the Abraham Accords.

The geographical significance is difficult to miss. Somaliland sits directly across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen and near the Bab el-Mandeb, the maritime gateway between the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Israeli and allied strategic analysts have openly discussed recognition in terms of Red Sea security and countering Iranian and Houthi influence.

While this does not prove that Israel is preparing for a new war in Yemen, it plainly represents strategic positioning around the southern entrance to the Red Sea, where conflict with the Houthis is almost certain to be the outcome.

Recent reporting adds something that makes the broader pattern considerably more ominous with regard to the likelihood of eventual American involvement.

Africa Intelligence reported last month that senior RSF figures and members of Hemedti’s family have maintained high-level contacts with Israel since the beginning of the war. More strikingly, separate reporting says that two RSF delegations traveled secretly to Tel Aviv, one in May 2025 and another in February 2026, to meet Israeli diplomats and intelligence officials.

While these reports do not establish an Israeli government decision to support Hemedti, Israel, whose strategic cooperation with the UAE has been increasing rapidly since normalization between the two in 2020, appears willing to entertain a relationship with the RSF.

While we don’t have anything conclusive yet, the logic of such a relationship is increasingly clear.

The SAF’s problem is that it increasingly looks less like an uncomplicated vehicle for Sudanese national sovereignty and more like the center of a coalition containing powerful Islamist elements and enjoying relationships with Egypt, Iran and Turkey. The Financial Times⁠ recently noted that Islamist militias have become increasingly important to the SAF’s military effort and that eliminating residual Iranian influence and preventing the resurgence of Sudanese Islamists has become a concern for Washington, Israel, and the UAE because of their broader preoccupation with Red Sea security.

Imagine, then, that the war continues and the SAF eventually emerges as the clear victor.

Tel Aviv, and through them Washington, might reasonably ask whether it wants a Sudanese government dependent upon Islamist militias, increasingly close to Iran and aligned with Egypt and Turkey, or whether a fragmented Sudan, with an RSF-dominated western region tied economically and politically to the UAE, would actually be less threatening to Israeli interests.

That would be an ugly choice. The RSF has committed extraordinary atrocities⁠, including crimes against humanity in Darfur.

But American foreign policy has repeatedly demonstrated that “the lesser evil” is often enough.

Washington would not necessarily need to announce that it had taken sides against the SAF. It could simply stop insisting that the RSF must be defeated. Chemical weapons could provide the moral justification. Humanitarian concerns could provide the diplomatic justification. Countering Iranian influence could provide the strategic justification. And the UAE could provide the money, weapons and regional infrastructure.

The result might look less like “America arms Hemedti” than like America decides that Hemedti’s survival is preferable to his defeat and gives the nod behind the scenes to regional allies to make things easier for the RSF.

That is precisely how foreign-policy reversals often happen. They are not announced as reversals. The enemy simply becomes the lesser evil.

I would not claim that this is happening yet. The current American position remains formally opposed to outside military support for either faction, and Washington is still pushing negotiations rather than openly backing the RSF.

But the ingredients for a future reversal are beginning to appear.

And if the strategic competition around the Red Sea intensifies—particularly if Israel’s new relationship with Somaliland develops into a genuine security partnership, if the UAE’s position in the Horn expands, and if the SAF’s dependence on Islamist and Iranian-linked forces deepens—then Sudan’s civil war may instead come to be viewed as another front in the struggle over who controls the strategic geography surrounding the Red Sea.

For those interested, watch for the moment Washington begins deciding that an RSF victory is less dangerous than an SAF victory.

For myself, I have argued since the literal beginning that Washington should stay out. It has done well so far, but there is considerable danger of it falling off the fence in the coming years.