It has been just over a month since the Rapid Support Forces' (RSF) atrocities in El-Fasher shocked the international community and intensified calls to end Sudan’s war.
In the aftermath of that bloody episode, US President Donald Trump has publicly pushed for a ceasefire, aligning himself with a new framework advanced by the “Quad”, a mediation bloc formed in September 2025 comprising the US, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
In November, the Quad unveiled a roadmap to halt the spiralling conflict: an immediate three-month humanitarian ceasefire, negotiations toward a permanent truce, and a nine-month political transition.
The plan also promised humanitarian corridors, protection of civilian infrastructure, and renewed access for aid agencies cut off by RSF and SAF fighting.
Yet observers still believe the Quad’s initiative remains structurally incoherent. After all, its own members have diverging interests for Sudan’s conflict, while US engagement remains largely reactionary to the devastation unfolding in that country.
As a result, the prospects for a meaningful ceasefire remain limited in what they can achieve.
Conflicting agendas
The RSF quickly accepted the Quad-backed proposal and, on 24 November, announced it would accept a broader truce, although analysts interpret this as a face-saving gesture to whitewash its own atrocities in El-Fasher.
“The RSF has never not accepted a ceasefire because a big part of their public relations strategy is to appear like the more responsible party, while continuing to carry out its war on the country. Everything the RSF says is to burnish and obfuscate an image other than the one that is genocidal,” Cameron Hudson, a former US government official who previously served with the State Department and National Security, told The New Arab.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the army of the internationally recognised government in Khartoum, rejected the proposal as the “worst ever”, criticising its failure to rein in the RSF.
"There have been decades of narratives in Khartoum portraying external mediation efforts as foreign interference or even conspiracies against the country,” Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and the founding director of Confluence Advisory, a think-and-do tank based in Khartoum, told The New Arab.
“So, when a new grouping like the Quad emerges, it is immediately viewed through that historical lens.”
Humanitarian NGOs have stressed the urgency of a ceasefire in a war that has ravaged Sudan since the RSF’s split from the SAF in April 2023, killing upwards of 150,000 civilians and displacing over 11 million.
“Regional and international responses to the Sudan conflict have been grossly inadequate. Diplomatic initiatives have so far failed to halt attacks on civilians, secure humanitarian access, or hold perpetrators accountable,” Abdullahi Hassan, a researcher at Amnesty International, told The New Arab.
“All ongoing peace efforts must ensure genuine, broad-based consultation with Sudanese civil society groups, including local humanitarian responders and human rights defenders – and the inclusion of their views and concerns in any peace process or other decision-making that affects them,” he added.
While the RSF has attempted to portray itself as supportive of a ceasefire, which analysts claim is mostly a public relations stunt as it seeks to legitimise its rule over its territories in southern and eastern Sudan, it also aims to consolidate a parallel administration, which it announced in February 2025.
Moreover, while battlefield momentum remains on the RSF’s side following the capture of El-Fasher, it has set its sights on other regions such as Kordofan, an economically strategic region in central Sudan.
“It’s dry season, and until the rains come next June, there’s little incentive for either side to pause the fighting. Both sides, especially the RSF, want to consolidate their gains before the rainy season,” said Kholood Khair.
Analysts note that the dry season provides easier mobility, improved logistics, and open supply lines, particularly benefiting the RSF’s reliance on technicals and desert routes.
Without external intervention, the conflict in Sudan is likely to persist. In this context, the proposal put forth by Donald Trump and the Quad becomes particularly relevant.
Trump's entrance into Sudan's war
Trump’s re-entry into diplomacy on Sudan came after discussions with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the US president publicly promised to “push for peace”.
The announcement coincided with the unveiling of the Quad-backed proposal. But despite the fanfare, Washington’s engagement quickly appeared shallow. By 25 November, a senior US official acknowledged that neither the SAF nor the RSF had formally accepted the plan.
According to Cameron Hudson, it is not an encouraging start.
“A demonstration of seriousness would include the appointment of a new, high-level point person to lead the US effort, along with the appropriate staffing for that person and the development of a comprehensive US strategy for Sudan.
None of those things appear to be happening, which suggests a short-term, surface-level engagement that seeks a temporary ceasefire and little else,” he said.
Evidently, Trump's participation represents a symbolic gesture rather than a meaningful policy change.
Moreover, Kholood Khair notes that Trump’s push for peace comes as he seeks a deal before Christmas, in time for the Nobel Peace Prize nominations early next year.
However, Trump remains keen to defer to Gulf partners, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Given strong US-Gulf connections in areas like AI cooperation, strategic alignment and vast Saudi and Emirati investments in the US (with Saudi Arabia committing nearly $1 trillion, and the UAE $1.4 trillion, over multi-year periods in 2025), Trump has so far delegated much of the US approach to Sudan policy to these actors via the Quad framework.
But since his “America First” approach prioritises maintaining those relationships while accepting their often-opposing interests, it is unlikely that the November initiatives alone will significantly shift the trajectory of Sudan’s conflict.
Problems with the Quad
Although the Quad’s stated aim is to stabilise Sudan through a policy strategy and humanitarian ceasefire, its lack of implementation has exposed the bloc’s deep contradictions.
Despite the humanitarian outcry over the El-Fasher atrocities, the UAE continues military support to the RSF, not only aiming to counter perceived Islamist influences within the government but also to protect its investments in gold mining operations in RSF territory, which the faction has safeguarded.
Conversely, Egypt has backed the SAF, viewing the RSF’s advancements as a destabilising force near its southern border.
And Saudi Arabia has adopted a more measured stance, maintaining balanced relations with both parties, and while it has nudged Trump to pursue a peace plan, it is reportedly unhappy with Abu Dhabi’s support for the RSF.
Still, both Riyadh and Cairo are also fearful of Islamist movements emerging amid the chaos in Sudan and would like to see a stable solution sooner rather than later.
The conflicting goals of the parties make unity nearly impossible, a dynamic underscored by how the SAF itself views the war.
“The Quad formula gets wrong a fundamental driver of the war, at least from the SAF perspective. The mediation that is needed is not between the SAF and the RSF, but rather the SAF and the UAE,” Cameron Hudson added.
“The SAF knows this, which is why it rejects the very premise of the Quad and its inclusion of the UAE. The SAF is asking a very reasonable question, ‘how can the UAE be both mediator of the war and the prime instigator to the fighting?’”
Hudson’s remarks represent a broader perspective that sees the UAE, rather than the RSF, as the SAF’s main counterpart. Abu Dhabi has significant influence over the conflict and is deeply embedded in RSF territories, meaning its ability to control the RSF and restrain its atrocities could play an important role in stabilising Sudan.
Encouraging this approach is one of the few meaningful actions the Quad can take.
Moreover, the SAF’s rejection of the proposal is not about its contents, but the identity of the mediator.
Kholood Khair noted that Sudan’s historical and regional differences also shape how people interpret the war.
“Unlike areas in the south or east like Darfur, Blue Nile, or Kordofan, many people in Khartoum, River Nile State, and Gezira had never experienced war. They saw themselves as natural allies of the SAF, which framed the RSF’s campaign as an invasion of the Sudanese state.”
Because the SAF has built a substantial domestic constituency around this narrative, it now has less incentive to accept a peace deal.
“Rallying support against the UAE as an enemy of the state only reinforces the SAF’s reasons to continue fighting,” she added.
“It gives the RSF more reason to present itself as the more reasonable party, something that has also begun to worry both Saudi Arabia and Egypt.”
With Sudan still suffocated by competing geopolitical interests, pressure is mounting on both armed groups. Yet Trump’s proposal fails to confront the UAE’s central role in the conflict.
While Sudan enters yet another brutal year of war, international action remains fragmented. Without confronting the Quad’s internal contradictions or applying real pressure on its own members, no ceasefire can hold.
Until then, Sudan’s war will deepen, and its de facto partition risks becoming an entrenched and devastating reality.
Jonathan Fenton-Harvey is a journalist and researcher who focuses on conflict, geopolitics, and humanitarian issues in the Middle East and North Africa.
Follow him on Twitter: @jfentonharvey