Darfur On the Brink

From an article of the same title in The Week on September 22, 2006:

Warning of an imminent bloodbath in the Darfur region of Sudan, tens of thousands of protesters in New York, London, and other cities this week demanded immediate U.N. intervention. Several world leaders joined the call for U.N. action. The Security Council last month agreed to dispatch 22,500 peacekeepers to Darfur, contingent on the permission of the Sudan government in Khartoum. But the government, which has launched a brutal offensive against rebel groups, opposes U.N. involvement... The U.S. must take the lead, said Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Bob Dole in The Washington Post. We could start by imposing economic sanctions and creating a no-fly zone over Darfur. But we should also make it clear that if these measures fail, military intervention will follow. "The question is whether the United States and other nations will act now to prevent a tragedy, or merely express sorrow and act later to deal with its aftermath."

The article by McCain and Dole in The Washington Post is here. A quote:

The scale of human destruction thus far in Sudan has been staggering. Already, more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, with perhaps 2.5 million forced into squalid camps. This catastrophe is the result of a directed slaughter perpetrated by the Sudanese government and allied Janjaweed militias... As with Srebrenica in 1995, the potential for further mass killing in Darfur today is plain for all to see. All the warnings have been issued, including one from the United Nations that the coming weeks may see "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale." What remains unclear is only whether the world has the will to impose an outcome on Sudan different from that which unfolded so tragically in Bosnia. Make no mistake: At some point we will step in to help victims in Darfur and police an eventual settlement. The question is whether the United States and other nations will act now to prevent a tragedy, or merely express sorrow and act later to deal with its aftermath.