A week ago I referred to the problem of genocide in Sudan as President Obama’s “practice test” in foreign policy. The President, like Sec. of State Clinton said of Sudan’s rulers, “they will be held accountable for the lives lost." During his campaign he used Darfur to distinguish his policies from Bush’s. He agreed with Joe Biden that we should help “enforce a no-fly zone.”
Yesterday well known civil libertarian Nat Hentoff made that proposal the centerpiece of his demand that the President back up words with action that would save lives. He noted that the no-fly zone proposal was proposed again by yet another Obama adviser, General Merrill A. McPeak writing in the Washington Post on March 5.
Obama’s UN ambassador Susan Rice who once envisioned a bombing campaign to save Sudanese Africans now restricts herself to futile talk with African nations in the UN. Hentoff notes that as Vice President Biden has been silent while the Sudanese government uses its helicopter gunships and bombers to abet the slaughter of black Africans. Hentoff notes that now that France has decided to join NATO, its airbase in Chad would be an ideal place from which to enforce a no-fly zone.
With a voice familiar and respected among civil rights advocates, Hentoff asks, “What, if anything, do you have to say, President Obama, about helping to energize the creation of a no-fly zone so that, on your watch, we can finally say ‘never again’ - and mean it?” Jerry Fowler, the president of the Save Darfur Coalition who supported Obama during his campaign, recently said, "We need presidential engagement and we need it now."
Darfur is quickly passing from the President's practice test to a practical test. So far the president has said little, but his choice of a friend and close adviser as special envoy to Sudan may be a sign that something's in the air. Retired Air Force General Scott Gration is a former fighter pilot.
Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
President Obama's Practice Test
Must President Obama find his equivalent to Reagan’s “Evil Empire” and Bush’s “Axis of Evil"? Even if he can find a euphemism for a word many once made synonymous with what they said was an arrogant righteousness, no one can deny the nature of the men who govern Sudan.
New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof has seen many horrors around the world, but wrote of Sudan, “nothing prepared me for Darfur, where systematic murder, rape, and mutilation are taking place on a vast scale, simply based on the tribe of the victim. What I saw reminded me why people say that genocide is the worst evil of which human beings are capable.”
In addition, the essence of the situation is racism—ruling ethnic Arabs enslaving and slaughtering black Africans. On March 4 the International Court indicted al-Bashir on 7 counts of war crimes. As long ago as 2004 Secretary of State Colin Powell found bipartisan support when he said al-Bashir’s regime was guilty of genocide. Can even a moral relativist doubt that whether Sudan is on an axis or just a point, its regime is evil?
This week Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir ordered all major foreign aid agencies out of the country. Secretary of State Clinton said the move would create "untold misery and suffering." She also warned the Sudanese regime that it would be “held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps, because by their expulsion of the aid workers ... they are putting those 1.4 million lives at risk."
Now President Obama must fulfill that promise or lose his credibility in world affairs. So, how will he hold al-Bashir responsible? Broadly described his policy choices are three:
--diplomatic pressure and criticism
--economic and political sanctions
--military action which might be through the UN, by a coalition, or unilateral
--do nothing
The President campaigned on and entered office with a promise to resolve international crises through diplomacy and coalition building, the kind of solution he said Bush should have used in Iraq. So far the preferred option is the same option that has failed for more than four years—diplomacy and consultation with the UN. The immediate goal, says Sec. Clinton, is nothing more than reversing the expulsion order.
If it works, where are we? Foreign aid and humanitarian agencies have been in Sudan for more than a decade, and neither they nor diplomacy have stopped the slaughter. The UN Security Council offers little hope since China and Russia oppose sanctions and will certainly oppose stronger action. Besides, UN sanctions in Iraq were widely criticized for both increasing the suffering of Iraqis and funding Hussein’s weapons program through UN corruption.
The situation President Obama faces in Sudan is not very different from the situation President Bush faced in Iraq in 2002, except that Sudan has far less strategic importance, and there’s not even a suspicion Sudan poses an external military threat. That leaves President Obama to try to pull off a diplomatic miracle or use force.
The only other option is to say we care deeply, stir the world to sympathy with moving speeches, and watch the slaughter continue. Obama has professed great admiration for Teddy Roosevelt whose policy was “talk softly but carry a big stick.” Talk much and do little might fit under the Nixonian definition of realpolitik, but it won’t satisfy the desire for hope and change.
Joe Biden during the campaign made his famous warning that a foreign power would put Obama to a serious test in his first months in office. Sudan is not that test, but it may be a test of the President’s ability to pass the coming test.
New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof has seen many horrors around the world, but wrote of Sudan, “nothing prepared me for Darfur, where systematic murder, rape, and mutilation are taking place on a vast scale, simply based on the tribe of the victim. What I saw reminded me why people say that genocide is the worst evil of which human beings are capable.”
In addition, the essence of the situation is racism—ruling ethnic Arabs enslaving and slaughtering black Africans. On March 4 the International Court indicted al-Bashir on 7 counts of war crimes. As long ago as 2004 Secretary of State Colin Powell found bipartisan support when he said al-Bashir’s regime was guilty of genocide. Can even a moral relativist doubt that whether Sudan is on an axis or just a point, its regime is evil?
This week Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir ordered all major foreign aid agencies out of the country. Secretary of State Clinton said the move would create "untold misery and suffering." She also warned the Sudanese regime that it would be “held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps, because by their expulsion of the aid workers ... they are putting those 1.4 million lives at risk."
Now President Obama must fulfill that promise or lose his credibility in world affairs. So, how will he hold al-Bashir responsible? Broadly described his policy choices are three:
--diplomatic pressure and criticism
--economic and political sanctions
--military action which might be through the UN, by a coalition, or unilateral
--do nothing
The President campaigned on and entered office with a promise to resolve international crises through diplomacy and coalition building, the kind of solution he said Bush should have used in Iraq. So far the preferred option is the same option that has failed for more than four years—diplomacy and consultation with the UN. The immediate goal, says Sec. Clinton, is nothing more than reversing the expulsion order.
If it works, where are we? Foreign aid and humanitarian agencies have been in Sudan for more than a decade, and neither they nor diplomacy have stopped the slaughter. The UN Security Council offers little hope since China and Russia oppose sanctions and will certainly oppose stronger action. Besides, UN sanctions in Iraq were widely criticized for both increasing the suffering of Iraqis and funding Hussein’s weapons program through UN corruption.
The situation President Obama faces in Sudan is not very different from the situation President Bush faced in Iraq in 2002, except that Sudan has far less strategic importance, and there’s not even a suspicion Sudan poses an external military threat. That leaves President Obama to try to pull off a diplomatic miracle or use force.
The only other option is to say we care deeply, stir the world to sympathy with moving speeches, and watch the slaughter continue. Obama has professed great admiration for Teddy Roosevelt whose policy was “talk softly but carry a big stick.” Talk much and do little might fit under the Nixonian definition of realpolitik, but it won’t satisfy the desire for hope and change.
Joe Biden during the campaign made his famous warning that a foreign power would put Obama to a serious test in his first months in office. Sudan is not that test, but it may be a test of the President’s ability to pass the coming test.
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