Trump adviser tells a Dubai forum that neither Sudanese general has a political future
Massad Boulos said in public what Washington has implied for a year — that Burhan and Hemedti are both excluded from any settlement. The Security Council, meanwhile, bought itself one month to argue about the arms embargo’s map.
Speaking at the Arab Media Summit in Dubai on Tuesday 15 September, Massad Boulos, Donald Trump’s senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, said the United States backs a political process that excludes both belligerent commanders. “There is no future for any of the two leaders in the country,” Boulos said, naming army chief and Sovereignty Council president Lt Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. He said Washington supports “a rapid transition to civilian rule” and would back only that track. The National and Radio Dabanga carried the same wording independently. The venue is not incidental: the summit opened in Dubai on Tuesday with GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi and senior executives from Reuters, AFP and Euronews among the participants. Boulos is not a new target for Port Sudan — in November 2025 Burhan accused him of being “an obstacle to peace” and said the Quad had become biased towards the RSF.
The harder instrument sat in New York four days earlier. On 11 September the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2828 (2026) under Chapter VII at its 10220th meeting, extending the 1591 sanctions regime and its arms embargo by a single month, to 9 October, and the Panel of Experts mandate to 9 November. Both had last been rolled over for a full year in September 2025. The short extension exists because members cannot agree on geography: the 1591 embargo covers Darfur, not Sudan. Ambassador Jeffrey Bartos, the US Representative for UN Management and Reform, said after the vote that “we heard emphatic support from a broad group of members to expand this arms embargo to the entire territory of Sudan,” that some members preferred the status quo, and that a long-term technical rollover “is not an option.” In April the Council designated four individuals, including Al-goney Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF’s procurement director and Hemedti’s brother, and three Colombian nationals.
Assessment: Read the two items together and the sequencing looks deliberate: a maximalist statement about who is excluded, delivered in the Emirati capital of the Gulf media circuit, three weeks before a sanctions deadline that will force members to vote on whether the embargo covers the whole country. What is not established is whether Boulos was stating an agreed Quad position or moving ahead of Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi — no partner has echoed the line. Distrust any framing of this as a policy shift. Excluding both generals has been the rhetorical American position for a year; the test is whether the 9 October text has a map in it.