President Donald Trump’s peace diplomacy must not allow Iranian-backed Islamist networks—or other armed factions sustained by foreign patrons—to become permanent fixtures of the states the US hopes to stabilize.

The United States removed Sudan from its State-Sponsored Terrorism list in December 2020. Still, in March 2026, the Trump administration designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The designation cited the Brotherhood’s main armed wing, the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade, for its connections to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and mass violence against civilians.

In Libya, Brotherhood-linked political movements have long contested national political power, while Turkey—inclined to support political Islam at home and abroad—has established a substantial military and diplomatic presence in the country.

The cases of Sudan and Libya expose a common danger also visible in unstable environments like Lebanon and Gaza: peace agreements that reconcile domestic political players without dismantling hostile armed networks with anti-American foreign dependency.

The White House has already established significant counterterrorism priorities. Even before the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade’s terrorist designation came down in March, Washington designated Brotherhood branches in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as SDGTs.

Naming these threats is only the beginning, however. As Iran continues to resist American power in the Persian Gulf, its continuing cooperation with disparate Islamist organizations—especially Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah—demonstrates that sectarian differences do not prevent tactical partnerships when tactical or strategic interests converge. 

Indeed, despite the Sunni-Shia divide, as of 2023, Iran provided Hamas with an estimated 93 percent of its military budget. These figures will have naturally receded after Israel’s evisceration of Iran’s regional allies and the United States’ military operations against Iran proper. Still, the networks appear to remain intact and operational. They must not be allowed to expand or add new members.

A coherent American strategy must ensure that organizations targeted through counterterrorism measures cannot regain coercive power through diplomatic arrangements or domestic political settlements. As senior advisor for Arab and African affairs to both President Donald Trump and the US State Department, Massad Boulos, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, should not merely negotiate peace. He must also ensure that any peace he negotiates eliminates the structures and forces that make these countries ungovernable.

The Sudanese Islamic Movement, historically associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, became deeply embedded in the state during Omar al-Bashir’s three decades in power. Through the National Congress Party and its predecessors, Islamist figures exercised influence over security institutions, government ministries, and economic networks.

Bashir’s overthrow in 2019 removed his government but did not eliminate those structures. Ali Karti, a former foreign minister and senior leader of the Sudanese Islamic Movement, was sanctioned by the United States in September 2023 for undermining Sudan’s democratic transition and obstructing efforts toward peace. Sudan’s current civil war has provided opportunities for elements of these networks to reassert themselves. The Iran-linked al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade has fought alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with an estimated 20,000 fighters.

Boulos therefore faces two distinct problems: solving Sudan’s bloody and destabilizing domestic crisis and eliminating the influence of US-designated Islamist militants who could otherwise remain major players in Sudan’s political future.

The stakes are high and immediate, given the nature of the Persian Gulf crisis and its recent extension to the Red Sea basin. Iran’s continuing support for the Houthis in Yemen has demonstrated how a militarized movement can threaten commercial shipping, Israel, and American naval forces. Sudan’s Red Sea coastline creates potential vulnerabilities that Washington cannot ignore.

If the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade survives Sudan’s civil war and, worse, is allowed to enter any future power-sharing agreement, it could eventually threaten maritime security in the Red Sea and become a long-term problem for international energy flows. As the recent conflict has shown, this is a vital US national security concern. Disrupted energy flows directly affect the global and US domestic economy and are reportedly part of a larger Iranian strategy to influence the 2026 midterm elections in the hope of frustrating the remainder of Trump’s second term.

Muslim Brotherhood-linked figures established Libya’s opposition Justice and Construction Party following Muammar Gaddafi’s fall in 2011. In 2012, it finished in second place in national elections and, until 2014, held five ministerial portfolios in the newly formed national coalition government. Much of Libya’s local governance and civil society has come under its influence.

Turkey, under pro-Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has supported Justice and Construction while also backing western Libya’s government in military operations against the rival government that claims authority in eastern Libya. European Council on Foreign Relations research has documented Turkey’s earlier cultivation of Brotherhood-linked political movements and its role as a haven for Islamist exiles from Libya, Egypt, Gaza, and elsewhere.

In December 2025, Turkey’s parliament extended its military deployment in Libya for another two years, effective from January 2026. On October 20, 2026, Libya’s eastern government overcame its adversarial relationship with Turkey and approved a disputed maritime agreement that Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and some US politicians have denounced as illegal and destabilizing.

Washington must scrutinize these developments closely. The maritime security of the eastern Mediterranean depends on a unified NATO. This is truer than ever now that Britain has proved separately unable to defend its sovereign bases in Cyprus, which is outside NATO and not coincidentally feels threatened by the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement. The eastern Mediterranean is the next link in the sea lines of communication transporting energy products from the Persian Gulf to European markets. Any disruption to its security will exacerbate recent turmoil in international energy markets, to the detriment of US economic interests. 

The United States has also cultivated Greece as a conduit for high-volume liquid natural gas transshipments to the Balkans, Central Europe, and Ukraine. This development could permanently replace Russian energy imports with American product sent directly to Greece and Caspian basin product flowing through pipelines that traverse Turkey. Any worsening of already tense Greek-Turkish relations due to Turkish policy in Libya could disrupt those arrangements, posing clear threats to European energy security and US economic interests while leaving Russia competitive in future energy diplomacy.

Washington cannot stabilize either Sudan or Libya while armed Islamist networks play any role in either country’s government. Boulos has an opportunity to translate Trump’s counterterrorism directives into a coherent regional strategy. In Sudan, that requires enforceable restrictions on Iranian military support and the exclusion of designated terrorist organizations from power. In Libya, that means unified security structures, keeping the Justice and Construction Party in opposition, weakening its Brotherhood actors, and ensuring that commercial relations with Turkey or any other country do not disrupt the status quo in the Mediterranean.

Like Iran’s other proxies and regional networks, the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade must remain subject to American intelligence, sanctions, and counterterrorism enforcement. Turkey’s involvement in Libya should be oriented away from supporting political Islam and causing any other potential disruption to eastern Mediterranean security.

The United States needs reliable strategic partners, a NATO free from internal tensions, a secure Mediterranean, a free hand to reorient energy flows to its fullest advantage, and a Red Sea basin unaffected by any maritime security crisis manufactured in Tehran. Israel needs reassurance that US-engineered diplomatic settlements will not create new opportunities for Iran-backed armed organizations to expand their capabilities anywhere.

The essential question for Massad Boulos is whether his agreements will dismantle the structures of instability or simply give those structures a new political name.

About the Author: Paul du Quenoy

Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute and president and publisher of Academica Press. A historian and critic, he has taught at multiple universities in the United States and abroad and is the author of five books. He holds a PhD in History from Georgetown University.

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