SUDAN - Opposition To Middle East Peace Ending - Part 2.

Sudan is going through a phase of significant change and reflects a move away from the radical Islam that the regime espoused during the 1990s. This shows a greater appreciation within the leadership, led by President Omar Hassan Al Bashir, of the strategic realities facing the country. Khartoum is seeking to improve its relationship with the West, with some help in the background from Egypt. In terms of its policies, it means Sudan is less involved on the ideological side of the Arab-Israeli conflict than it used to be.

Thus, ironically, when the Arab-Israeli conflict is taking a turn for the worse in view of the deterioration of the Middle East peace process, Sudan is likely to stay out of any controversial developments. While the rhetoric against Israel is likely to be kept up, Khartoum is not likely to be a welcoming host to militant leaders and movements - as it was during the 1990s when Shaikh Hassan Al Turabi was the power behind the throne in the country.

During the 1990s, under Turabi's role as a mentor for numerous Islamist movements in the Middle East, various radical groups opposed to Israel's existence used to benefit from the safe haven facilities they received from Sudan. Partly as a result of this, as well as because of Khartoum's links to exiled Saudi militant Osama Bin Ladin, Sudan was put by the US on its list of "terrorist states" in 1993. The negative implications included, apart from Western support for southern rebel forces and military aid for neighbouring countries, a US cruise missile assault in August 1998.

It is also important to note that Israel had played a role in supporting the southern rebellion, spearheaded by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and its political wing the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) - led by Col. John Garang, a graduate of the University of Iowa. Unusually, Israel has reportedly had a long but discreet relationship with Sudan prior to the 1989 coup. Former president Jaafar Numeiry, deposed in a coup in 1985, was said to have had direct contacts with Israel. Sudan has also in the past accused Israel of trying to pit the Nile River riparian states against each other in order to destabilise the region. Israel has good relations with both Ethiopia and Eritrea, with the former being the source of the Nile headwaters.

The fact that Turabi has been sidelined does not mean that there would be moves by the Khartoum leadership to enter a relationship with Israel. As some observers point out, the Sudanese military leaders are themselves quite hardline in their basic views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The only differences between them and Turabi are that (a) the latter had a pan-Islamic approach and the credibility needed to create trouble for Israel, and (b) the generals are more pragmatic and recognise that an overtly confrontational attitude towards Israel would make it difficult for them to work out a better relationship with the US.

Unlike Turabi, who needed to keep up his anti-Israeli activities to boost his credibility among the Islamists in the region, the current leaders of Khartoum have no such compulsion. The main challenges facing the Sudanese leaders are domestic. The country is suffering the longest uninterrupted civil war in the world, and more than 2 million Sudanese are estimated to have died of causes directly or indirectly linked to war.