The Morality of Intervention

The civil war in Sudan has claimed more than 50,000 lives in Darfur, while a million more have been driven from their homes, caught in the crossfire of the bloody conflict between the Sudanese government and ethnic minority rebels.

The need for immediate action is clear. But because of the Iraq War, it may never be taken.

Under pressure from human rights groups, both Britain and the United States have joined Kofi Annan in proposing a UN resolution that calls for economic sanctions and travel restrictions. It is an exercise in futility – the kind that paved the way for widespread massacres in Rwanda and Srebrenica. What is urgently needed now is a credible threat of a military intervention, which was all that was required to preempt genocide in the past.

The sad truth is that the lack of action on Sudan is in no small part a result of George Bush and Tony Blair's not-so-excellent adventures in desert. A study published on Wednesday by the Foreign Policy Center, a British think-tank, unequivocally laid the blame for the unfolding genocide on the Iraq war. The report criticizes Britain and the United States for backing "quiet diplomacy, " a response it characterizes as "utterly inappropriate." Its author Greg Austin told The Independent, "The commitment of the U.S. and the U.K. in Iraq and the use of military force in Iraq pushed them away from considering any sort of military option."

The invasion of Iraq also diminished the prospects for an international consensus for action in Sudan, and too vigorous a push by the U.S. will achieve little except to stiffen resistance. Fears of blurring the line between humanitarian intervention and moral crusade seem all the more pressing because of the Bush/Blair war machine, which has done its best to sell the one as the other.

While Britain and Australia have both expressed readiness to commit troops, it is almost impossible for Muslim nations in the Security Council such as Algeria and Pakistan to agree to U.S. led action against an Arab League member like Sudan. The Arab world's tolerance for the atrocities committed by their rulers is indeed a cause for despair. But the occupation of Iraq, including the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the U.S.'s total support for Ariel Sharon, and the xenophobic anti-Muslim and anti-Arab outbursts in the United States, make that stone harder to cast.

In the case of Sudan, in particular, there is also Bill Clinton's botched destruction of the pharmaceuticals factory that demonstrated, long before 9/11 and the missing WMD, that military intelligence is often an oxymoron. And some of the organizations in the U.S. pushing for action would not be as zealous in the case of Sudan if it did not entail taking action against "Arabs."

It is therefore hardly surprising that many governments and their people across the world are willing to cut some slack for any Arab regime in the face of American "concern." And even if they were to accept the need for intervention of some kind in Sudan, why would they entrust George Bush with such a task?

While those who oppose the Bush administration's call for action are right to doubt Washington's intentions, there is no shortage of countries that are just eager to support a rogue state for reasons of shortsighted or expedient "national interest." The fact that some of the members opposing action against Sudan are the same as those who opposed the war in Iraq is hardly a cause for reassurance.

France, for example, was the patron of the former Rwandan regime, the protector almost up to last moment of the Serbian ethnic cleansers in Bosnia, the defender of Morocco's occupation and repression in Western Sahara. And even if French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin did make an excellent case against attacking Iraq, his government was previously a staunch defender of its oil interests in Iraq.