> if your goal is the control of resources, you don't really care if your proxy ends up engaging in these and other war crimes

Granted. The UAE is not involved due to animus. But this analysis renders everyone in Sudan as NPCs. The reason the conflict is an opportunity for meddling, the reason it has turned into a genocide, these causes are found more in culture and politics than pure economics.

> You get that power when you supply the weapons and can choose who to supply them to

America withholding arms from Sudan wouldn’t change much.

If we started dictating Emirati foreign policy based on withholding arms, they should drop us as a security guarantor. (And can. And eventually would.)

We’d lose a reliable ally and investor and oil producer in exchange for foreign policy control in a region Americans are sick of being involved in.

> What if the US declared that gold sourced from Sudan was illegal to trade in?

Nothing. Like actually nothing. Maybe domestic gold prices would bump up a bit, but less than they have with tariffs and the deficit explosion.

If we tried to get the UAE to stop trading Sudanese gold, on the other hand, that would mean applying diplomatic and possibly economic pressure. That could result in costs to American voters we don’t care to pay.

> the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme ("KPCS") for conflict-free diamonds

Yet blood diamonds still sell.

Gold is tracked and traded based on provenance—high-end mints will produce more expensive bars. The difference is there is a larger buyer pool for conflict gold than there is for diamonds. (And much more for oil.)

> American voters pretty famously don't really care about foreign policy at all

This is what I meant. American leaders are constrained in acting on foreign policy lines that result in domestic pain. Alienating the Gulf would result in domestic pain.