One can find Khartoum morally abhorrent. One can find Sudan’s regime to be a travesty on human rights. I do on both counts.
But you’ve got to hand it to them — from a pure realpolitik/power politics vantage point, Omar al-Bashir and company sure know how the game is played. On Sunday the Northern Sudanese Army threatened to expand their power play to two more areas, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan States, along the north-south border, to go along with their use of force in Abyei. By Tuesday officials announced that Sudan and Southern Sudan had signed an agreement, brokered by the African Union, on border security.
I cannot prove causation or even causality between these two stories. And I also do not believe we have heard the end of Khartoum-fomented violence on the border. But it seems fairly clear that Sudan is going to use military might as a tool in developing for itself the best possibly outcome once South Sudan finally does gain full independence.