To all those who express concern, here and elsewhere, about the suffering caused by this war in Sudan: thank you for your sincere sentiments. But beware, and do not be misled by shiny slogans. Attempts to weaken the national army do not necessarily mean dismantling the war.

If the state relies on a regular army as its primary instrument for retaking cities and protecting civilians, while the militia simultaneously has external networks for financing and arms supplies, then imposing a comprehensive arms embargo may produce yet a greater imbalance of power rather than bring the war to an end.

Under the UAE-backed formula now being promoted by Massad Boulos at the Security Council, the very civilians for whom they claim to be deeply concerned today could tomorrow find themselves under the control of a stronger militia, even less committed to the rule of law—as the militia’s previous conduct in Geneina, Al-Jazira, and ultimately El Fasher has demonstrated.

In fact, circles that overtly or covertly placed their bets on the militia, were shocked by the slide victories achieved by the Sudanese Armed Forces and their allies, and by the major shifts on the ground over the past period: The state has regained vast areas as well as major urban and strategic centres, leaving the militia increasingly confined to remote areas on the fringes of Darfur and Kordofan.

This means that the strategy of imposing a new political reality through the militia’s military power has become increasingly difficult to sustain. The battle to (dismantle Sudan) is therefore being pursued through other instruments: a successive diplomatic, humanitarian, political, and economic pressures, synchronized by systematic campaigns of media distortion and demonisation.

Against this conspiracy, the positions of international and regional actors that uphold Sudan’s sovereignty, unity, and the integrity of its institutions are of particular importance. Russia and China, each in its own way, have stressed the importance of Sudan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and rejected solutions based on further external intervention.

Along the same lines, Egypt continues to uphold Sudan’s unity and national institutions, while Saudi Arabia stresses the need to protect civilians and halt attacks. Pakistan, likewise, has called for preserving Sudan’s unity and institutions.

The convergence of these positions around the principles of Sudanese sovereignty, unity, and state institutions makes clear that reducing the Sudanese crisis to a formula of “two warring parties who must both be disarmed” is nothing more than a deliberately distorted reading of the Sudanese reality.

The greatest mistake in dealing with the current war of aggression is to place the state in the category of “one of the parties to the conflict,” as though it were merely another armed faction. The army is not another militia; it is the official military institution of the state. And the state is the legal framework to which the war must ultimately return.

This gives us every right to ask: Isn’t disarming militias and restoring the state’s monopoly over legitimate weapons precisely what the governments of Lebanon and Iraq are currently being urged to do by the very same United States and Western governments? Why the double standard? “What is wrong with you? How do you judge?”

The real challenge before the international community is not how to prevent the Government of Sudan from possessing weapons, but how to prevent illicit weapons from reaching the militia. It is not how to weaken Sudan’s national army, but how to strengthen the state so that it can better protect civilians and end the rebellion. It is not how to economically isolate Sudan, but how to shut down the financing networks that enable the militia to continue the war—by listening to the voices that have grown hoarse calling for precisely this, including experts from Yale University.

For this reason, any sustainable settlement must ultimately rest on a clear principle: one national army, one legitimate armed force, one state, and one sovereignty.

Any settlement that leaves the militia as an independent military and political force, or grants it renewed legitimacy without dismantling its armed structure, will not be peace. It will merely be a temporary truce before unleashing another round of genocides, ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities .

The Sudanese people have demonstrated throughout this war that protecting the state is not an abstract concept. The difference between an area controlled by the army and one controlled by the militia is no longer a theoretical matter. Sudanese civilians have paid the price in blood, dignity, properties , displacement, and exile. In other words, they will not accept having their sacrifices turned into an entry point for reproducing the crisis in another form.

Again, any new international initiative must therefore be judged by its consequences, not its labels.

* If an “arms embargo” would, in practice, weaken the army while the militia’s supply channels remain open, then it is not a path to peace.

* If “civilian protection” is used to weaken the state’s ability to protect those very civilians, then it becomes protection turned upside down.

* Likewise, if “humanitarian assistance” becomes a pretext for altering the balance of power, it loses its humanitarian essence.

And if a “political settlement” becomes a vehicle for reproducing the militia in a new political guise, it will not end the war; it will lay the foundations for another one.

The time has come for the international community to recognise that the road to genuine peace and lasting stability in Sudan does not run through weakening its institutions. It runs through empowering those institutions to restore the state’s legitimate monopoly over arms, protect its citizens, hold all perpetrators accountable, and open the way for a Sudanese-led political settlement that is not imposed from abroad.

Sudan is a state. The army is an institution of that state. Protecting the state is not a crime. And weakening it in the name of protecting civilians may ultimately become the shortest route to delivering those very civilians—whom they claim to mourn—to the hands of those from whom no one can guarantee their protection.

It is a battle over who has the right to shape Sudan’s future: the will of the Sudanese people, or projects designed beyond their borders.