once again we see that a country's inclusion or exclusion on the DOS's list of state sponsors of terrorism is more about politics than who actually sponsors terrorism. in this week's episode we see a country's inclusion being used as a bargaining chip to get it to hold a referendum that it promised to hold in a US-brokered peace agreement. whether the referendum occurs or not, of course, has nothing to do with whether the sudan sponsors terrorism. it has everything to do with whether the country does what the US wants it to do.
to be clear: i also want the sudanese referendum to happen (i don't think it will, but that's another post). but i think that it is stupid for the US to continue to pretend that its list of state sponsors of terrorism really is what it claims to be. it's really just a list of countries that the US wants to impose sanctions on. because the "sponsors terrorism" label triggers certain sanctions, the US government maintains this stupid fiction. but to the best of my knowledge, no country has ever been added to the list because of a specific terrorist act that it sponsored.
