Sudan's deposed prime minister signed a deal with the military on Sunday that will see him reinstated, almost a month after a military coup put him under house arrest. A key pro-democracy group that has mobilized dozens of protests had dismissed the deal as "a form of betrayal."

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The country's top general, Abdel Fattah Burhan, said in televised statements that Abdalla Hamdok will lead an independent technocratic cabinet until elections can be held. It remains unclear how much power the government would hold. It would still remain under military oversight.

It also remains unclear whether any political parties or pro-democracy groups have signed off on the agreement.

The deal expects the military to release government officials and politicians arrested since the Oct. 25 coup.

The coup, more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government, has drawn international criticism.

"The signing of this deal opens the door wide enough to address all the challenges of the transitional period," Hamdok said, speaking at the signing ceremony broadcast on state TV.

Sudanese have been taking to the streets in masses since the military takeover, which upended the country's fragile transition to democracy. The agreement comes just days after doctors said at least 15 people were killed by live fire during anti-coup demonstrations. Hamdok has been held under house arrest by military leaders for weeks.

The deal also stipulates that an investigation shall be conducted to identify those responsible for the killing and injuring of civilians and troops that marred protests following the coup.

Hamdok thanked Sudan's "regional and global friends" who helped in reaching this agreement but he did not name the countries.

The 14-clause deal also stressed that power should be handed over to an elected civilian government after the end of the transitional period.

"By signing this declaration, we could lay a genuine foundation to the transitional period," Burhan said.

The Sudanese Professionals' Association, a group that played a key role in the uprising against Bashir, voiced their vehement opposition to the agreement, accusing Hamdok of committing "political suicide."

"This agreement only concerns its signatories and it is an unjust attempt to bestow legitimacy on the latest coup and the military council," tweeted the group shortly after the deal was signed.

Earlier, the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, an umbrella of many political parties and pro-democracy groups, objected to any deals with the military.

In a statement Sunday, the group reiterated its opposition to any new political partnership with the military, insisting the perpetrators of the coup should be brought to justice.

"We are not concerned with any agreements with this brute junta and we are employing all peaceful and creative methods to bring it down," the statement said.

The largest of the political parties said to be included in the deal, the Umma Party, had also issued a statement implying that it did not sign off on it.

Cameron Hudson, a former US State Department official and Sudan expert at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center, said the deal allows the generals to largely retain their control and avoid accountability for the coup and the deaths of dozens of protesters.

"This is a deal among elites that largely seems to prioritize their preservation over the demands of the street," he said.

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Sudan's top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan defended the army's seizure of power on Tuesday, saying he had ousted the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to avoid civil war.

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Speaking at his first news conference since he announced his takeover on Monday, Burhan accused politicians of incitement against the armed forces. He said Hamdok was confined in his own home and had not been harmed.

Soldiers arrested the prime minister and other members of his cabinet on Monday, hours before Burhan appeared on TV to announce the dissolution of the Sovereign Council, a body set up to share power between the military and civilians.

Monday's military takeover brought a halt to Sudan's transition to democracy two years after a popular uprising toppled long-serving autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

An official at the health ministry said seven people were killed in clashes between protesters and the security forces on Monday. On Tuesday, life was halted in Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman across the Nile, with shops shut and plumes of smoke rising from where protesters were burning tires.

Burhan said the military's action did not amount to a coup, as the army was trying to rectify the path of the political transition.

Western countries have denounced the coup, called for the detained cabinet ministers to be freed, and said they will cut off aid if the military does not restore power-sharing with civilians.

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"This is a sad day for America, regardless of how we got there … The Chinese are looking at this with glee and that's a tragedy," Florida's Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on Wednesday in the wake of the riots on Capitol Hill.

"We look like a third-world country. This cannot happen."

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Even though Rubio was supportive of the efforts to scrutinize the voting procedures to find out if the November 2020 election produced fraudulent results, the fact that throngs of protesters stormed Congress as if it were the Bastille was just too much.

"We can't do it this way. We can't have half of America that is happy and half of it unhappy; the America that we know marches in unison," he said.

The year 2020 was tough, but now 2021 is off to a terrible start. I visited the US just two months ago to cover the election, held under the difficult conditions set by the pandemic and after a campaign like no other. I have witnessed and covered many things in life but on Wednesday, as I was walking in Washington, I could not believe that I was actually in the beating heart of the world's most powerful democracy, the leader of the free world. I could believe the America we have come to admire so much had devolved to this state of affairs.

The events on Wednesday actually got off to a good start. I arrived just before the storm, when a peaceful rally began outside the White House. It was a celebration of democracy, demanding the elections get proper scrutiny. Then the protesters began marching toward Capitol Hill. I saw families, parents and children. They had come to see their president, who addressed them from the rally's podium. They were convinced that their vote was stolen. But that did not stop the energy from infusing the event and the loud cheering of Trump fans.

And then, out of nowhere, things went haywire. Trump supporters stormed the barricades and even damaged the tribunes set up for the upcoming inauguration. Some breached the perimeter and entered the actual legislative chambers. It was true pandemonium.

"The door was knocked down, so I just entered," a woman told me. She came with her friend from Florida. "We covered the statues with Trump 2020 flags and then we were asked to vacate the premises, and we left." But some of her friends refused to follow this order.

Not a uniter-in-chief

This was a bad day for Republicans, but in all the chaos one should not lose sight of the hypocritical conduct of CNN and other networks that defended the rioters in the George Floyd protests that swept the country and refused to condemn those who were trying to damage federal buildings in Portland. CNN has also forgotten the major protests that erupted on the very day of Trump inauguration in 2017, and Hillary Clinton's insistence that Trump is not a legitimate president.

But in our world, there are some instances that just look bad, no matter what you do. This was the case with Trump this time. He enthused the crowd to the point that could have triggered a chain of chaotic events. It's hard to believe that this was his direct fault, but a president is supposed to be a uniter, and Trump has refused to embrace that idea all through his term. As far as he is concerned, his goal is to cater to his base and nothing more, but that doesn't mean he is responsible for its conduct. The last time the building was breached in such a manner was in 1812, when the UK attacked the American capital. The images this week were truly historic. Daniel, who arrived in DC from North Carolina this week, told me just outside my hotel during the curfew on Wednesday that "today America saw that the people cannot be defrauded. We entered the Holy of Holies of American democracy. Why can the Left carry out destruction, but we can't do the same?"

John, from Ohio, was less convinced. He told me the protesters made the wrong call by storming the Capitol. He told me that the events make it impossible for Trump to launch another bid for president in four years. As Rubio said, these were third-world country images.

"The people here don't want to see the election being stolen by socialists and the fake media," Trump said during his rally, just before the storm. Later, when he realized that things were truly out of control, he turned to his supporters on Twitter and implored on them to "go home" and "remain peaceful by showing respect for the men and women in blue."

Trump may have called for calm, but for Twitter that was not enough and it suspended his account for 12 hours, citing his alleged efforts to overturn the elections.

The Democrats' sweep

Ironically, the pace of events made the political drama that had unfolded a day earlier seem like ancient history: The Democrats won Georgia's two Senate seats in the special runoff. For the first time since 2014 they are now (starting Jan. 20) going to be in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. The donkeys have conquered the capital, albeit with a razor-thin majority.

Incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who lost one of the Georgia runoff races, conceded on Thursday that now that the Electoral College's vote has been certified by Congress, the country must unite behind Joe Biden. Even Trump's ally Sean Hannity from Fox News went out of his way to condemn the violence and called for the arrest and prosecution of all the rioters.

It was a sad fact that during a day celebrating one of the oldest democratic traditions in America – the certification of an election – the National Guard had to be called up to protect the people's legislative chamber and one of the symbols of the capital from an angry mob.

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But for all the drama on Wednesday, the American people, already exhausted by the pandemic and economic recession, are more focused on vaccinations and want to know why they are not being distributed fast enough. The Right, which was also shocked by events, apportions blame on the media for ignoring the Left's radical groups, such as Antifa. It wants to know why the security forces and the Left were not as determined to prevent the riots during the George Floyd protests six months ago. But above all, Americans want to go back to normalcy.

The Democrats must also do some soul-searching. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seen on television shredding the president's speech right after he delivers the State of the Union Address, this sends a message that is not lost on Trump's base. Of course, this does make violence justifiable, but it creates unnecessary antagonism. That said, in light of Thursday's events, there was widespread agreement on both sides of the political divide that it was time for Trump to abandon his efforts to overturn the election and let Biden prepare for taking office. And late Thursday, Trump did just that by addressing the nation and officially conceding the election. A few hours earlier he even vowed to engage in an "orderly" transition.

One of the people I met outside the Capitol was from Texas. As you would expect from someone who grew up in the Lone Star State, the violence he saw barely made had an impact on him. He told me I should look at the grand scheme of things.

"It's a good day because I think we will see some justice hopefully be done, it's going to be sad if we don't see justice. So we're really at a critical turning point in American history," he said.

I asked him whether he approved of the riots, to which he replied, "I don't like it that they went in that far. I think that's kind of sad. I think that is always the case when you get a group of people. There are a few idiots, but for the most part, just coming out around the Capitol building there are not people destroying the Capitol."

Finally, I asked him if Biden was his President-elect. His response could not be more forceful: "Oh hell no. Never."

I saw another Texan, Brad Comes. He was waving his state's flag and donning a cowboy hat. He told me that "today was a peaceful show of numbers and force." As far as he was concerned, the events spiraled out control but this should not come as a surprise. "These are people who are dedicated enough to drive all the way across the country to show up on the same spot on the same day for their president. And anyone who understands statistics knows there is no way he lost this election. If they are just going to steal our vote and take our money then we are just tax slaves."

When I asked him if it was a mistake to ransack the place, he said: "God knows on that one. It's his world, I just do my little part in it. If they had listened to peaceful protests we wouldn't have to resort to such things. Black Lives Matter get their way because they violence in destruction. We have been watching it for a year. What were we supposed to do? Allow them to take over our country because we are not willing to stand up for ourselves?"

When I asked him who his president was going to be on Jan. 20, his response was immediate. "It's Donald J. Trump," he said.

Back to Georgia. The two runoff elections on Tuesday produced historic results, even though they were all but forgotten after the hectic events that unfolded in Washington a day later. The Democrats don't usually win in that southern conservative state. In fact, Republicans had won every Senate race there since 2000. They have so far won every election in the state for governor since 1998 and for attorney general since 2006. But over the past two decades, the Left has gradually managed to paint the red state in blue, until a critical mass was reached in November, when Georgians chose Biden over Trump. Then, on Tuesday, they decided to send two Democrats to serve as their senators in Washington. This is nothing short of a political earthquake, but it was reduced to a footnote in a news cycle dominated by violence.

Georgians who were traveling to Washington could be easily spotted at Atlanta's airport this week by their Trump 2020 flags and masks. Quite a few of them were on my flight to Washington, just hours after the results in the two runoffs were announced. They could not be more depressed and shocked, feeling that more salt had been placed on the wounds of the conservative camp in America, while the Democrats were on cloud nine.

In the two months between the first round in November and the runoffs on Tuesday, the Democrats worked hard to register more voters, while the Republicans were too busy challenging the Electoral College vote, with the encouragement of Trump (who had every right to believe that he had been denied a fair election, considering that he increased his electoral showing compared to 2016 by some 15 million votes). But the Democrats wasted no time and won because of former Democratic candidate for Governor Stacey Abrams, who worked tirelessly to get more African American voters involved. Democrats are now optimistic that more states will follow Georgia's path and become blue or at the very least purple, including Texas.

Media outlets in the US have described the two runoffs as the most important Senate races in history. Some $500 million were spent on ads over the past two months, and the GOP could not be more disappointed, especially because they were so close to winning in November. Republican candidate (and then still incumbent senator) David Perdue almost crossed the 50% threshold in the first round against 33-year-old Jewish candidate Jon Ossoff. Had Perdue won, the Republicans would have guaranteed a continued hold on the Senate for the next two years, but since neither he nor the other Republican candidate, Loeffler, could win an outright majority of the vote, a runoff was declared in both seats, ending on Tuesday with stunning losses. Perdue lost to Ossoff, and Loeffler lost to Democratic pastor Raphael Warnock, who leads Dr. Martin Luther King's church. But unlike Dr. King, he is no Israel ally.

For Georgians, there is finally some rest, after being bombarded with ads over the past two months. It appears that they were not too keen on having everyone make them the focus of attention. Even in the Trump rally I attended just north of Atlanta just before the vote, it was clear that they were eager to put this election behind them, unlike the voters I saw in rallies in Pennsylvania and Arizona during the November presidential race.

"He was an amazing president, and had he been more careful in his rhetoric and been less reluctant to wear masks, he would have been elected for another four years in the White House and we would have also held on to the Senate," Jeff, a businessman from Atlanta, told me.

Murphy, who lives in neighboring Alabama told me that he has "only one America, and I won't let the Democrats ruin it for me." He was also on the plane to Washington, and he brought a flag along with him. "They are ashamed of being Americans, they are ashamed of our history and our heritage; but proud people like me celebrate America. I am truly concerned about the fate of my flag." This reminded me of an African American man I met in Atlanta, who explained to me that "With the Republicans, life is better in America."

But for all the drama in Washington and in Georgia, the real focus for most Americans is the pandemic. We may no longer be in 2020, but the virus is spreading fast, creating scary headlines in practically every front page. The vaccination drive, despite being launched in December, is stalling. This time, for a change, the Trump administration is not being blamed. It appears that the local officials and drug companies are moving too slow to make sure the vaccines reach as many arms as possible.

US Vice President Mike Pence was probably the most important political figure this week. He chose to follow his conscience by not playing along with the effort to overturn the election during the crucial joint meeting of Congress, despite presiding over the event. He reportedly told Trump the constitution makes his role in the certification of the vote mostly ceremonial and thus he had no choice but certify his loss.

Some would probably say this has more to do with Pence's possible 2024 presidential bid and that any effort to sabotage the certification process would have killed his prospects. As for Trump, it is unclear whether the events of this week adversely affect his apparent wish to launch another run in 2024. Looking back, this week could be seen as the first event of his future campaign.

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In an extraordinary rebuke of US President Donald Trump, all 10 living former secretaries of defense are cautioning against any move to involve the military in pursuing claims of election fraud, arguing that it would take the country into "dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory."

The 10 men, both Democrats and Republicans, signed on to an opinion article published Sunday in The Washington Post that implicitly questioned Trump's willingness to follow his Constitutional duty to peacefully relinquish power on Jan. 20. Following the Nov. 3 election and subsequent recounts in some states, as well as unsuccessful court challenges, the outcome is clear, they wrote, while not specifying Trump in the article.

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"The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived," they wrote.

The former Pentagon chiefs warned against use of the military in any effort to change the outcome.

"Efforts to involve the US armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory," they wrote. "Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic."

A number of senior military officers, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said publicly in recent weeks that the military has no role in determining the outcome of US elections and that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not to an individual leader or a political party.

The 10 former Pentagon leaders also warned in their Post article of the dangers of impeding a full and smooth transition at Defense Department prior to Inauguration Day as part of a transfer to power to President-elect Joe Biden. Biden has complained of efforts by Trump-appointed Pentagon officials to obstruct the transition.

Without mentioning a specific example, the former defense secretaries wrote that transfers of power "often occur at times of international uncertainty about US national security policy and posture," adding, "They can be a moment when the nation is vulnerable to actions by adversaries seeking to take advantage of the situation."

Tensions with Iran represent just such a moment. Sunday marked one year since the US killing of Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian general; Iran has vowed to avenge the killing, and US officials said in recent days that they are on heightened alert for potential Iranian attack on US forces or interests in the Middle East.

In a further sign of US-Iranian tension, the acting secretary of defense, Christopher Milller, announced Sunday evening that he has changed his mind about sending the Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, home from the Middle East and instead will keep the vessel on duty. Just last week, Miller announced that he was sending the Nimitz home, a decision that had been opposed by senior military officers.

In reversing himself, Miller cited "recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other US government officials." He did not elaborate, and the Pentagon did not respond to questions.

The opinion article in the Post was signed by Dick Cheney, William Perry, Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Ash Carter, James Mattis and Mark Esper. Mattis was Trump's first defense secretary; he resigned in 2018 and was succeeded by Esper, who was fired just days after the Nov. 3 election.

The Post reported that the idea for writing the opinion piece began with a conversation between Cheney and Eric Edelman, a retired ambassador and former senior Pentagon official, about how Trump might seek to use the military in coming days.

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