> likely that the US is kept at bay by trading UAE acceptance of Israel in return for diplomatic cover and military passivity
Sudanese tensions predate the current mess in Gaza, as well as the Abraham Accords.
At this point I’m surprised we aren’t seeing people conclude that we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq because of Israel.
The last time Janjaweed-style gangs engaged in similar acts of apartheid and genocide in Darfur the US opposed it and openly called it a genocide. This was in 2007.
I'm not sure when UAE ramped up funding and equipping of similar groups in the Sahel and Maghreb, but when Libya collapses in 2011 they decided to do it there and a few years later they rebrand Janjaweed-militias as RSF and expects them to professionalise because they are provided with resources and diplomatic cover.
Unsurprisingly these gangs in Libya, Mali, Sudan and elsewhere don't stop doing racist murder and rape because it is made easier for them to get away with. Also unsurprisingly, the UAE sees the US as the main risk that they'll be stopped and held accountable, because the ICC and ICJ just don't work as a decent person would expect them to.
The US got (justifiably) yelled at for the war in Iraq, and again (less justifiably) in Libya and Afghanistan, and took the leas that military interference is always wrong, despite the obvious counterexamples of Syria and Crimes.
This is complicated by a lot of the yelling coming from US peace activists, who took advantage of their complete vindication in Iraq (and Vietnam before that) to pretend that there's a through-line and preventing a dictator from bombing dissidents or a naked land-grab-war-of-aggression is identical to starting our own naked-land-grab-war-of-aggression.