The U.S. government has offered to remove Sudan from its State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list by July 2011 in exchange for Khartoum fulfilling promises to allow the Southern Sudanese referendum to take place without obstruction and to respect the outcome of the vote. U.S. Sen. John Kerry made the offer, a revision of an earlier deal presented on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September, during a surprise visit to Sudan Nov. 5-7. What is new about Kerry's overture is the shortened time frame for removing Sudan from the SST list and the decoupling of the offer from developments in Darfur. An SST label prevents a country from buying certain arms and dual-use items from the United States, prohibits direct American economic assistance and bars lucrative U.S. defense contracts, as well as American support for things such as World Bank loans, among other items. By offering to expedite Sudan's removal, Washington is trying to give Khartoum an incentive to allow the south to hold its independence referendum without obstruction and to not only respect the outcome (which will almost certainly be secession) but also to cooperate with the prospective Southern Sudanese state following the vote on issues such as border demarcation, oil-revenue sharing, currency and citizenship. It is unlikely that Khartoum will accept the offer. Even if Sudan were to be taken off the SST list after nearly 20 years, it would still be under separate U.S. economic sanctions (as there is no resolution in sight to the issues in Darfur). Any potential windfall brought by its removal would most likely be negated by the continued U.S. ban on doing business with Sudanese companies, namely in the oil sector. While Sudan is in no pressing need of American oil companies' investment (thanks mainly to the attention it has received from China), it certainly would not hurt for U.S. oil majors to show attention to an industry that has only been exporting crude since 1999.
Sudan's History on the SST
The United States first added Sudan to the SST list in 1993, with Washington alleging that the Sudanese were actively harboring local and international terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. Khartoum expelled bin Laden in 1996, but the country remained on the list for a number of reasons. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton levied the first American sanctions regime on the Sudanese government in 1997 when he signed Executive Order (EO) 13067, one year before ordering a bombing mission against a factory in Khartoum suspected of involvement in the production of VX nerve agent (it turned out to be an aspirin factory). His successor, George W. Bush, maintained the sanctions with two amendments to EO 13067 made in April and October 2006. Bush's amendments addressed the Darfur situation and put a greater emphasis on targeting Sudan's oil industry, which had not begun to produce crude when Clinton's sanctions package was adopted. In addition, the Bush revisions to EO 13607 exempted the areas of Southern Sudan, Darfur, Southern Kordofan, Abyei, Blue Nile and "disaffected regions" around Khartoum (all areas which contain sizable populations of Southern Sudanese), aiming to limit the effect of the legislation to just the north. Washington justifies Sudan's continued inclusion on the list by asserting that Khartoum continues to support Hamas. While
this is true to a certain extent, Sudan's support for Hamas is not nearly on the same level as Iran or Syria. In reality, the SST list is only partially used to punish regimes that actively support international terrorism, with Washington often using the list to exert political pressure. Cuba, after all, remains labeled as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and Washington even threatened to reapply the SST tag to North Korea in 2009, without any new evidence that Pyongyang had begun to support terrorist groups again. Indeed, the U.S. State Department admitted in 2005 that no al Qaeda elements had been present in Sudan with the knowledge and consent of the Sudanese government since 2000, and also stated in its 2007 country report on Sudan that Khartoum had become a "strong partner" in the global war on terrorism.
The U.S. Stake in Sudan
The United States does not have a pressing strategic interest in what happens in Sudan — Khartoum is not actually a major supporter of terrorism, and the U.S. oil industry is not tied into Sudan's — but it does prefer an independent south. The legacy of American hostility to Khartoum finds roots in Sudan's days of actively supporting jihadist groups, but the policy has continued on largely due to domestic politics. (Both the left and right wings in the United States, which have a soft spot for Darfur and the Christian populations of Southern Sudan, respectively, support tough stances on the Khartoum government.) The trick for Washington, then, is in finding out how to facilitate the creation of an independent south while simultaneously avoiding a descent into another Sudanese civil war. Both sides — the north's ruling National Congress Party and the south's ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement — have expressed a willingness to go back to war if necessary, and so the United States must find ways to placate them both. For the Southern Sudanese government in Juba, this means ensuring that the referendum is held on time and that Khartoum is forced to respect the results. For the north, however, this is more complicated. Washington knows that Khartoum does not suffer from any legitimate fears in the short term of losing its access to the south's oil wealth. The fundamental geographic reality of Sudan, sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil-producing region, is that whether or not the south is independent, the
oil pumped there must go through the north to reach market. Khartoum thus holds almost all the leverage over Juba and will very likely be able to maintain an oil revenue-sharing setup similar to the one that currently exists (in which the proceeds from profit oil are split roughly down the middle) in the event of secession. A newly independent south could feel emboldened enough to try to drive a harder bargain, but seeing as the Juba government is dependent on oil money for 98 percent of government revenue, it could not afford to push too hard when Khartoum controls all the export options. Still, though, the
Sudanese government will not simply allow the referendum to take place without putting up roadblocks, as there are long-term considerations at play that constrain Khartoum's options. It is no secret that the south plans to construct an alternative pipeline route to Kenya, though the project is currently in its infant stages at best. Southern Sudanese Energy Minister Garang Diing Akuong estimated in a Nov. 9 interview that such a pipeline would take three to four years to construct, and that in the meantime, the south would continue to use northern pipelines to export crude through Port Sudan. This means that Khartoum is most likely secure in knowing that its economic relationship with the south will not completely unravel in the near term, which makes the Sudanese government less amenable to accepting such an offer from the United States.
