Sudan’s Role in United States Defense of the Middle East and North Africa: The Debate and Its Consequences

United States-Sudanese relations were determined largely by pragmatic considerations, which both sides had. The paucity of Sudan’s resources, its aridity, and its endemic economic crises, forced its leaders to look for foreign support. The country’s location south of Egypt left it in a precarious position and prior to its independence, the political parties were divided over whether to opt for independence or for unity with Egypt. Advocates of the ‘Unity of the Nile Valley’ wished to be part of Egypt, while their opponents in the Umma Party sought to establish an independent Sudanese state. The latter prevailed, and on January 1, 1956, Sudan became an independent country with a tendency to look toward the West for guidance.

Following the coup led by Ja’far al-Nimeiri in 1969, the country established close relations with the Soviet Union. However, realizing that he could reap greater benefits from an alliance with the U.S., Nimeiri turned to it for help and thereby changed the country’s foreign policy orientation. By doing so, he opted for a pragmatic approach, which his followers continue and thereby managed to obtain U.S. support that endures to this day.

U.S. relations with Sudan were characterized by a similar pragmatic approach. The country was of little interest to U.S. in the early days, except for merchants, archaeologists, and missionaries who passed through it. However, with the outbreak of the Cold War, U.S. policy makers began to appreciate its strategic location south of Egypt and its proximity to the Red Sea and Port Sudan. With the outbreak of the Suez Affair of 1956 and the emergence of Pan-Arabism, the country began to loom large in U.S. foreign policy and continued to be so during the Cold War and beyond.

Background

Americans had little knowledge of Sudan prior to its independence. Only a handful of scholars became interested in that country. The first time Americans heard about Sudan was in the early nineteenth century, when the Biblical scholar George Bethune English, who adopted the Muslim name Muhammad, traveled to Egypt in 1820, and met Isma’il Pasha, son of the Albanian governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. English became commander of the Egyptian artillery and was involved in suppressing the Sudanese rebels who arrived in Sennar at the end of 1822. After his arrival in the U.S., English published a memoir of the Sudan expedition in which he described the brutally of the Egyptian soldiers and the wretched conditions of the local population. President John Adams who believed that the U.S. was destined to have an impact on that country remarked in his memoirs, that “a few American steam boats…would soon make the Nile as navigable as our Hudson, Potomac, or Mississippi.”¹ Later, missionaries became interested in that country as well but they did not arrive in the country until the late nineteenth century, when they established missions in the country.² Until then, however, most of the news about the country arrived through British sources. One of the spectacular events, which interested the U.S. government, was the murder of the British General Charles Gordon in Khartoum in 1885. Theodore Roosevelt who later became president, expressed his condolences and praised Britain for defeating the Islamic forces in Sudan whom he regarded as infamous, known for their “bigotry, tyranny, and cruel religious intolerance.”³

Learning about the Condominium Agreement of 1899, in which the British government agreed to rule Sudan jointly with Egypt, the U.S. government approved of the settlement. Its official position was “To make possible British recognition of King Farouk as King of the Sudan it would be necessary for the Egyptians to return to the terms of the Treaty of 1899 and abide thereby.”⁴ In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. government began paying greater attention to Sudan. The country’s proximity to the Suez Canal and to the source of the Nile brought U.S. strategists and policy makers to...