Iraq and Afghanistan

In today's paper, Kristof again attacks what he calls the genocide in Darfur, a province of western Sudan. He shows pictures and tells us again that as a country we must respond. He briefly lists what he calls the "technical answers", including trial of the leaders at the International Court at the Hague, sanctions against Sudan, freezing the assets of Sudanese leaders etc. But he argues that what we need to stop the genocide is not technical solutions but "indignation", an answer that he apparently expects to be expressed through letters to Congressmen.

My feeling is that no matter how terrible the crimes, indignation won't get us very far if we do not have an effective solution in mind. The problem in Rwanda was not just that the world was inattentive, but that Western leaders were understandably hesitant to start off on open-ended adventures in Africa, no matter how grounded and funded. It is significant that the problems in Rwanda were largely resolved only after Tutsi forces were able to retake the country. Serious fighting and crime continues across the border in the Congo (with perhaps more victims than in Darfur), but the level in Rwanda itself is acceptable. The international presence that has been established in Congo is insufficient to accomplish much; the troops sent in are so undisciplined that they have themselves become part of the problem.

This suggests to me that we must build solutions wherever possible around identifying a local actor and going with it, even if the actor is not perfect either morally or organizationally.

We should remember the Kurds we protected in their mountains in the 1990s with the no-fly zone and the Albanians we protected largely through the use of air power. Using such examples, we need to develop a set of strategies, accompanied by the identification of the necessary forces and matériel, that would be able to provide rapid protection to areas such as Darfur. In Kurdistan, our support worked because we stuck to our policy and the Kurds had enough forces on the ground to uphold their end. The Darfur independence movements are more doubtful. But they have been in the field for some years and they have a direct and real interest in the outcome. We should make a decision to both support them and protect them, with the commitment of no more than minimal American force on the ground. Use of air power here is difficult because of the distances, but relatively easy because of the lack of cover in the relatively treeless area. The "protection" would extend to the considerable international charitable work that is being carried on today in Darfur and Chad under very difficult conditions. Ideally, we would intervene with the assistance of NATO, the United Nations or the African Union. But the fact is these potential allies have a poor track record of actually doing anything. African forces are in Darfur now, but they are not doing much.

First, we would hope to stabilize the situation. Then we would food and medical assistance and local development reach a sustainable poverty level. The goal in the long run would be a vote for independence under outside supervision somewhat as happened in East Timor. To move forward effectively, we would need to mend or maintain fences with the larger African and Arab world. Their leaders condemn actions against an African state or a Muslim state etc. Our job would be to simply point out to them the gravity of the situation, reiterating that everyone affected is both African and Muslim (unlike what was happening in Southern Sudan).

One should note that we should regularly draw clear policy distinctions between situations that "deserve" outside intervention because of the gravity of the crimes against the people. The Taliban invited our intervention by their record, even leaving aside 9/11. In a sense Saddam did deserve what he got. Certainly the leaders of North Korea will deserve whatever happens to them. (The feckless leaders of the Congos deserve intervention but not for the same reasons.) We should make clear that only a very high level of inhumane behavior will cause the United States to intervene. (This certainly does not include situations like that in Iran. Iran's leaders are not torturing and killing en masse or willfully neglecting the interests of their people.) We need by our actions and pronouncements over a period of years to develop these distinctions, so that when we need the world leaders to believe what we say our purposes are when we intervene, enough of them will.