What Happened Protests against the government of President Omar al Bashir have been withering since escalating on Dec. 19. The country's long-running economic stagnation is driving the latest cycle of unrest, which has been worsened by a plunge in the value of the Sudanese pound and by the doubling and tripling of the price of basic goods, including bread. The government in Khartoum is scrambling to find a way out of the deepening malaise. Even though al Bashir has weathered similar crises before, these protests do threaten his hold on the presidency. Should the battle-scarred president go down — which remains a big "if" — the country's stability would be shaky until a new political order could emerge. That unpredictability would complicate Khartoum's relations with its neighbors and its allies in the Gulf and elsewhere.