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THE governments of Sudan and South Sudan have been enlisting support from Iran and Israel: not a good omen for peace between north and south. In early May the UN Security Council threatened both Sudans with sanctions unless they stopped fighting and began to discuss how to share oil revenues and demarcate their disputed border. But within weeks a Sudanese delegation went to Iran, where the government promised to strengthen economic ties, oil exploration included. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that his country and Sudan, both facing international sanctions, were victims of “arrogant powers and enemies of mankind”.Since an Islamist-backed military coup brought Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, to power in 1989, Shia-run Iran has seen Sunni-dominated Sudan as a useful ally in north-east Africa, and has used Sudan’s east side as a corridor for weapons to be smuggled into Egypt and on to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group in the Gaza Strip. Israel bombed Iranian convoys on that route in 2009.Some generals in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, now appear to want to co-operate even more closely with Iran, aiming at South Sudan. An Iranian surveillance drone crashed in Sudanese territory in March after coming under fire from South Sudanese-backed rebels.Israel is just as keen to help South Sudan. President Salva Kiir and his defence minister recently visited Israel to...