Former President Obama lifted sanctions on the Islamist Sudanese government on January 13, 2017. The Islamist Sudanese government had long survived even with the sanctions in place. Don’t dismiss the genius behind its longevity by believing — as many have — that things have changed; that the influence of the hardliners, radical Islamists, has diminished during the past 20 years. The hardliners remain deep inside the government, still trying to build a global Caliphate and incite jihad.

Sudan’s Leaders

The leaders of Sudan are all hardliners who were committed to building a global Caliphate long before ISIS. They play a game of “Change the Face.” It’s a Darwinian dance to alter the regime’s appearance and fool the outside world while pursuing their agenda to bring Sharia and Arabization to all of Sudan and then to the entire African continent.

The late former Sudan Prime Minister, Hassan al Turabi, was a Change the Face expert. Turabi looked like a jolly old uncle, but the tiny Sorbonne-educated Muslim Brotherhood leader not only oversaw the forced Islamization and Arabization of the south, he managed the murahaleen, Arab militias that raided villages in South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, burning crops and livestock, killing men and taking women and children into slavery. They were forerunners of the Janjaweed (devils on horseback), responsible for the Darfur genocide.

Turabi accepted Bibles from naïve American pastors and nodded winsomely when they gushed that they were both “people of the Book”! He charmed the brains out of many Western visitors, but his Islamic ideology never changed. How could it? He was the founder of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, working for the globalization of radical Islam, and of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sudanese branch.

Another Change the Face expert was Sudan’s previous foreign minister (architect of the jihad in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains)  Ali Karti. Karti washed the blood of black Africans off his hands, put on a tailored suit and attended the National Prayer Breakfast. He charmed members of Congress with his sincerity and some invited him to their districts to spread his message of desiring peace and unity for Sudan, not having a clue what it actually means. (In these cases “peace” means Islam, which literally means submission. “Unity” means Arabization — all of Sudan’s hundreds of indigenous black African people groups to deny their own cultural heritage, language and customs, and embrace Arabization.)

Part of the Strategy

Change the Face and the related “Charm Offensive” are part of the overall strategy that has kept the Islamist Republic going in spite of unspeakable atrocities, persecuting Christians and other religious minorities, and perpetrating five genocidal jihads.

The genocide waged on southern Sudan (now Republic of South Sudan) and the Nuba Mountains/Blue Nile region resulted in the death of over 2.5 million people, with some 5 million displaced. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought the South’s misery to a standstill and the Nuba Mountains/Blue Nile region achieved a ceasefire arranged by the first U.S. Sudan Special Envoy, former Senator Reverend John Danforth.

But in 2011, the Sudan government began another genocidal attack on Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State that is still going on. Nuba Christians have been particularly targeted, the Bishop of the region revealed in his 2011 testimony to the House of Representatives. And Khartoum has supported insurrectionists in the South, trying to destroy the new nation.

The Case for Sanctions

Shouldn’t this be enough for the Sudan Islamist regime to merit sanctioning? But there’s more.

Most people have lost track of “saving Darfur.” They may be surprised to know that Darfur still needs saving. Sudan scholar Eric Reeves says 600,000 have died and some 2.8 million displaced in that genocide.

Untold numbers of women have been raped, including those violated in the Sudan Army’s mass rape of hundreds of girls and women. In addition, a recent report from Amnesty International documents the Sudan government’s use of chemical weapons more than 30 times in the past year against one town.

Shouldn’t this be enough for the Sudan Islamist regime to merit sanctioning? But there’s more. Sudan is the global jihad incubator. It plays host to numerous jihadi groups throughout the country. And it’s more than just a “host.”

Darfur is occupied by terrorist groups spreading from Sudan to Mali. The Darfur Sudan United Movement’s General Abakar Abdallah and activist Jerry Gordon write in FrontPage Magazine:

New terrorist groups continually arrive in Darfur from Libya through Dongola, in North Sudan … These terrorist groups … are believed to include Boko Haram and ISIS jihadis. Villagers who have encountered them reported they are a mixture of Arabs and Africans. The latter look like Nigerians … They possess ISIS flags and wear the Kodomul (black turban). They are moving on Toyota pickup trucks similar to those used by ‘Peace Forces’. The Sudan regime pretends that these ‘Peace Forces’ are combating illegal immigrants. In reality they are helping bring in terrorists and Chadian rebels from Libya to Darfur.

But additionally, the Khartoum regime continues training jihadists in its own terror camps that the United States has been warned about since the 1990s. And Khartoum is sending trained jihadists all over the world, disguised as refugees or as wealthy Sudanese citizens.

The Khartoum regime continues training jihadists in its own terror camps that the United States has been warned about since the 1990s. And Khartoum is sending trained jihadists all over the world, disguised as refugees or as wealthy Sudanese citizens.

This Darwinian survivor-regime stores up treasure for itself, making one deal after another while its people suffer. In addition to contracts with France for 16 million tons of gold in eastern Sudan, the regime recently announced a deal for 97 million tons of gold and silver in the Red Sea Minerals Project, to begin in the year 2020.

Global jihad will be well financed!

Khartoum also has agreements with Arab nations to provide farm land in Nubia, Beja land (Eastern Sudan), Darfur and elsewhere, displacing the indigenous people and stealing their land. The regime intends to change the demography of the country to erase its African identity.

Survival of the Evilest

What can defeat the survival of the evilest? The unified opposition of Sudan’s marginalized people from Nubia, Darfur, Beja Land, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State — the anti-jihad, anti-Caliphate, pro-secular democracy, pro-freedom and equality Sudanese — could put together a New Sudan. But they can only do this if the United States and others do not stand in their way under the illusion that the Khartoum regime are Islamists they can “work with.”

Then Sudan could change its face one last time. But this time, to the face of a secular democracy that would ensure religious freedom and equality for all Sudanese. Sudan would then face the United States as a real intelligence partner and a genuine ally in the war against global jihad.