The (Ex) Washington Realist

Yesterday was the main rally in Washington to urge the government to "do more" about Darfur. As the AP report noted, Thousands of people joined celebrities and lawmakers at a rally Sunday urging the Bush administration and Congress to help end genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. "Not on our watch!" the crowd chanted as a parade of speakers lined up for their turn on a stage on the National Mall, the Capitol serving as a backdrop.

The Darfur rally, to me, epitomized what's wrong with the American foreign policy discourse, what Harvey Sicherman calls the "hustle"--the belief in short-term, low-cost, easy solutions.

What we heard at the rally:

1. Talk about action is just as good as action. Consciousness-raising and protesting equals social responsibility. (It was also interesting that some of the coverage of the rally focused more on the participants, stressing the cross-religious, cross-ethnic, cross-political nature of the crowd, rather than on the issue of Darfur itself.)

2. "Someone else can do it." The African Union can handle the situation. (Let's just ignore the less than stunning peacekeeping successes in West Africa.) What we need is a "broad-based international force." (Code for: this means no U.S. forces). China is the problem.

I don't mean to minimize the human suffering and tremendous loss of life. But celebrities and politicians pontificating doesn't do much either. What leadership on the Darfur issue REALLY demands is the following:


1. Stopping the killing and strife requires a U.S. commitment--it requires U.S. logistics, equipment and trained personnel in sufficient numbers to be effective. It cannot be "subcontracted" out to ill-trained unmotivated conscripts from Third World militaries. Air power does not have much impact. The one feasible alternative is the one most pontificators refuse to countenance--private military contractors and mercenaries.

2. You want China to back us on Darfur--we have to be prepared to give China real commitments on its energy supply. I didn't hear any speech that said, "Paying $5 at the pump is a small price to pay for stopping genocide."

3. It is going to be complicated. To stop the killing any force has to insert itself into the situation. The force will have to navigate between defending a civilian population and "not intervening" in the political question of separatism. (The other alternative is simply to support, a la Kosovo, the separation of Darfur from Sudan).

Here the U.S. track record is not encouraging. 17,000 NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo can't quell pogroms and violence when they erupt. Peacekeepers in Bosnia from 1992-95 were also pretty ineffective (remember Srebenica?), unless forces on the ground are prepared to get down and dirty. They usually aren't.

The Darfur rally follows the Somalia script: shame the country into action. The problem is that shame is a very short term motivator.

Leadership would require American politicians to tell the truth, to make clear the costs and risks and to lay out the reasons for going. I am no White House speechwriter, but I think it would have to go something like this:

"My fellow Americans. Today I have ordered the mobilization of an American Expeditionary Force to Darfur. We have informed the government of Sudan that it can peacefully permit the deployment of U.S. forces in the region to end the cycle of violence and destruction or face the forcible intervention of the U.S. military. We have notified the various rebel groups in the west that they can peacefully stand down or run the risk of being targeted by U.S. forces.

"I have called president Hu Jintao to inform him that the United States will guarantee the equivalent of China's imports of oil from Sudan, from our own reserves if necessary, and requested that China fully support this humanitarian intervention.

"Many Americans have often lamented that we did not do more during the Holocaust, or the slaughter in Rwanda a decade ago. This is our chance to act. In ordering this intervention, I am very aware that America's sons and daughters are at risk. There are also real costs to pay, including the possibility of higher prices at the gasoline pump. We must be prepared to make sacrifices in order to guarantee the famed "Four Freedoms" to all people on this earth.

"In order to continue our operations in Iraq, in order to maintain a credible threat of military action against the mullahs in Iran and the dictator of North Korea, and in order to have sufficient forces for humanitarian action, I am asking Congress for the authority to call into service America's young. I am pleased to announce the creation of a new branch of service to begin training young Americans to serve in conflict-zone reconstruction forces, for those many young American men and women who have asked for the opportunity to serve and to be involved."

In an election year--such sentiments are highly unlikely.