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The Lessons of DarfurThe campaign has achieved all its goals—but one.

By Shmuel Rosner
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008, at 4:59 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

This is an interesting suggestion, but once again it is reflective of the trouble with the campaign to save Darfur: It is capable only of pressuring the U.S. government. First the effort was to gain recognition for the problem, which President Bush did with more zeal than some people expected. Then it was to solve it by means of domestic legislation and international cooperation. Congress reacted, and so did the administration. If the Olympics are the new tool, it will again be the U.S. government that's expected to act. Who else is going to boycott the Games? The athletes? Television networks? Television viewers?

No, it is Bush, yet again. And this time, the Bush administration has no appetite for endangering its improved relations with China by boycotting the Games to which the president himself is invited as a guest of honor. And there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm on the other side of the aisle, either. The Democrats still remember, painfully, the last time a U.S. president boycotted the Olympic Games.

Things didn't work out very well for the only presidential candidate to spend valuable debate time and credibility on Darfur. Sen. Joe Biden called for tougher measures against the government of Sudan. Despite his condemnation of the Bush administration for acting unilaterally in Iraq, Biden suggested we do exactly that in Sudan: "I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it," he said in April.

But there were no takers. Neither the administration, with its understandable reluctance to get into yet another conflict in a Muslim country (or any country for that matter), nor the other candidates rushed into action. When Biden left the field, the tough talk on Darfur stopped. Some still mention it once in a while, in front of the right crowd, to score political points. ("Hillary was the first U.S. senator to call Darfur genocide," said Bill Clinton, mistakenly, or misleadingly, depending on your level of suspicion.) But military force? The Republicans have the chip of military intervention in Iraq to carry on their shoulders, and that's more than enough; the Democrats won't dare suggest such a thing to their war-weary constituency.

So, here's the problem of the campaign to save Darfur: Public interest has waned, the simple options have all been exhausted, the political machinery is mired in the election process, and other problems—Pakistan, Iran—have taken over the front pages. When Hilal was appointed to his new position in the Sudanese government, the story was relegated to the inside pages. No wonder some of the Darfur activists feel despondent. No wonder Sudan feels emboldened or that China vehemently rejects any linkage between the Darfur crisis and the Olympics.

This story provides many valuable lessons, but we shouldn't forget the most elusive: The good people of America who wanted and still want to save the miserable people of Darfur expect too much of their government. And many of their desires are contradictory—almost impossible to achieve. Darfur illustrates these contradictions nicely.

Americans who want to help the persecuted people of Darfur want U.S. policy to be righteous, but they also prefer a government that doesn't pursue its goals too aggressively. They want the U.S. government to cooperate with the international community but also to be effective. They want America to be the policeman of the world, but in most cases, they are willing to support it only when it acts like a social worker.

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Shmuel Rosner is a columnist based in Tel Aviv.
Photgraph of African Union soldiers by Stuart Price/AFP/Getty Images.
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Fray Comment from the Save Darfur Coalition

News flash: ending genocide is tough work. But despite what Shmuel Rosner and his unidentified lunch companion might suggest, surely the "lesson of Darfur" is not to give up just because we haven't quite achieved our goal. In fact, the Darfur advocacy movement has come farther and achieved more than anyone would have thought possible when we got started.

For example, while Rosner rattles on about the Darfur movement running out of steam, the Chinese government is getting more and more rattled by Darfur activists. After long being Sudan's "heat shield" in the UN, Chinese Special Envoy Liu Guijin this week warned Sudan that "the world is running out of patience over what's going on in Darfur." And don't forget--Liu was only appointed in the first place after we brought pressure on China to leverage its influence with Sudan to help bring peace to Darfur.

This pressure also prompted China to support the UN resolution to deploy the largest peacekeeping mission in history to Darfur, after it had abstained on previous resolutions. But that mission risks being stillborn, so we can't let up. On February 12, six months before the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Darfurians, activists, athletes and celebrities will gather at Chinese embassies around the world to apply more pressure. And of course, China is not our only target.

So Shmuel, here's an idea: let's do lunch…

--Jerry Fowler, Executive Director, Save Darfur Coalition

(To see or reply to this post, click here)

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