“Confidence Building Measures” is a term more commonly associated with international conflict than U.S. domestic politics, but at the dawn of a new political era in Washington, DC both the Republican President and the new Democratic Congress would be wise to consider employing this age old tactic.
 
Such measures are needed because the level of distrust, and distain, between the two parties is at an all time high and frankly the country cannot afford two more years of political sparring….not when Iraq threatens to become the most damaging intervention in U.S. history and not when we also need to focus on a slate of other incredibly serious foreign policy issues.
 
So what can the Administration and Congress agree on during the first weeks of 2007 in order to build the trust needed to tackle the top tier crises of our time?
 
First, the President could announce that he will host a high level White House meeting on Darfur for key legislators and foreign policy experts from inside and outside government. Darfur is a bipartisan concern and the President would show leadership if he were to convene a group that would be able to map out a comprehensive U.S. global engagement plan on Darfur. Symbolically he could ask Rep. Payne (D-NJ) and Sen. Brownback (R-KS) to co-chair the working sessions.
 
Second, Congress should pass and the President should sign into law, legislation that would create a task force on AIDS and Global Poverty co-chaired by former President’s George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton tasked with developing a road map for the U.S. to play a leadership role in ensuring that the Millennium Development Goals are attained by 2015.  
 
Third, our elected officials should create an Independent Bipartisan Commission on Interrogation. After two failed efforts to effectively tackle the issue of interrogation it is past time that a broad range of experts are brought together and tasked with the duty of holistically looking at this issue and subsequently offering Congress and the President clear guidance as to changes in the law that need to be made. The experts would be drawn from the intelligence, foreign policy, law enforcement, military, veterans, legal and human rights community. Additional members could include representatives of the faith community, theologians, cultural specialists and historians.
 
Will these three confidence building measures be easy to accomplish? Unfortunately, in an indictment of Washington, DC circa 2006 the answer is no. However, in contrast to the top tier challenges to come these three measures are more easily attainable and would set a tone of cooperation for the final two years of the President’s term in office.
 
The country is facing a cluster of significant foreign policy challenges and needs the Administration and the Congress to work together – first they need to remember how this is done. 
 

Some of our readers may have seen PSA’s ad in the New York Times and Washington Post a few weeks ago on the topic of Darfur.  The ad served as a call to action for US policy makers to be more aggressive in restoring peace to western Sudan.  The ad also acknowledged the role the international community can and must play to facilitate the peace process.  It is this role that I’d like to direct my thoughts toward this afternoon.

The State Department finds itself taking the lead on a number of issues these days.  Iraq tops the list, followed by Iran and North Korea.  In South America, much of our diplomatic efforts are being spent on preventing Venezuela from taking the available seat on the Security Council.  And, though diplomatic efforts with Israel and its Arab neighbors have calmed down somewhat since the beginning of September, violence still threatens the region and, when it is necessary, the US will again take the lead. 

With so much on the agenda, the US has found it challenging to expend the time and resources that the Darfur Crisis deserves.  This is why it is so important for other countries to get more involved in the negotiations process.  President Bush has by no means forgotten Darfur, but with so many large-scale security threats around the world with which the US is so heavily involved, resolution of Darfur requires much more attention by other countries; namely Russia and China.  (more…)

I hope that everyone has had a chance to see PSA’s recent statement on the Darfur crisis.  Although this week much attention has understandably been focused on North Korea, I strongly believe that it is important that at the same time we don’t push other issues of enormous humanitarian concern to the sidelines. 

I’d like to highlight a report on Darfur that the International Crisis Group released on Thursday that lays out the different options in dealing with this conflict.  I think that they do an excellent job of evaluating the pros and cons of different choices.  What is clear is that there is much more that we could be doing.  The Darfur Peace and Accountability has finally been passed by the House and the Senate.  The President will be signing this in the next several days. However, this is only a starting point.  There are many more things that we could be doing to put pressure on the Sudanese government to allow in UN peacekeepers.  Many of these have already been supported by the UN Security Council.  So, I ask, what are we waiting for? 

In other news, I’m actually heading out to the Congo (DRC) on Monday and will be there for a month.  I’ll be serving an international election observer with the Carter Center.  It promises to be quite an interesting experience.  While I’m gone, Jordan Tama will be guest blogging for me.  I look forward to updating you on the situation on the ground in the Congo upon my return. 

George Packer has a pitch-perfect indictment of the latest round of inaction in Darfur, as a predictable spike in violence is/will be accompanied by a predictable round of condemnations, meetings, and failure to take effective action. His basic point: Africa is where everybody – meaning the U.S., Europe, the U.N., the Islamic world – has their gap between rhetoric and action exposed. We’re summoning greater and more timely outrage than we did with Rwanda, and still it makes little difference.

Africa and its tragedies – Darfur, Uganda, Congo, and on and on – simply cannot get the attention of western governments or the broad majorities of their public who would compel action. It does benefit from the attention of well-meaning celebrities, crusading jouranlists, and student activists, but there is a touch of condescension in this – that there is a status quo emerging where Africa is the domain of an international celebrity culture, and not institutions that could take more effective action (just look at the Clinton Global Initiative, where Bill Clinton is leading laudable efforts to solve problems in Africa after he has left the presidency).

Perhaps Packer’s most chilling statement is this: “But since when does the world listen to Africans? Unless Ivorians and Congolese start blowing themselves up in front of Western embassies and shops, it seems, their grievances won’t be taken seriously.” The implications of that statement are chilling in ways that the mind does not want to tackle.

As someone who has done a lot of research and writing about the genocide in Cambodia, I’m feeling a worrying sense of deja-vu all over again as I read the coverage of Darfur. There, as today, people over time largely agreed that genocide was taking place, but weren’t willing to do what it took to stop it. There, as at some point in the future in Sudan, people will come to grave sites and give eloquent speeches about how the world failed to respond. Historians will again write books, like Samantha Power’s The Problem from Hell, that explore how well meaning people weren’t willing or able to do what it took to end the genocide, even those who knew full well what was going on. Some things in life are difficult. This one is simple. With bipartisan support the United States must:

1. Either secure UN Security Council support for a humanitarian intervention in Sudan and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force or, if that will not be possible due to Chinese resistance, to seek the same authorizations and commitment through NATO;
2. Once force has been authorized, give the Sudanese government one last chance to support the peaceful deployment of a UN or NATO mission.

Making decisions like these is always difficult, but it always seems so clear that something should have been done at the memorials later held in concentration camps and killing fields. President Bush has taken all kinds of moralistic positions on issues that may not have merited them, but this is one case where the President’s sense of morality ought to be a national asset. It’s incumbent upon Democrats and Republicans alike to catalyze this process.

Secretary Rice spoke to the Security Council last week and called for UN action on Darfur even if Khartoum resists: “Our intention – I want to underscore – is not to impinge upon Sudan’s sovereignty. But let there be no doubt about our resolve. As President Bush said on Tuesday, “If the Sudanese Government does not approve the peacekeeping force quickly, the United Nations must find a way to act.””

She continued:

If the notion of the “responsibility to protect” that we all agreed to last year – if the notion of the responsibility to protect the weakest and most powerless among us is ever to be more than an empty promise, then we must take action in Darfur. This is a profound test for the international community, and we must show that we are equal to it.

Strong words. But she didn’t answer her own challenge, namely, how should the international community both respect the sovereignty of Sudan and yet not stand for the on-going violence in Darfur? What is the plan? Sending UN peacekeepers to Darfur is not just hard for the obvious reasons – a difficult environment, huge area, lack of funds and troops – but because it is ill-equipped to act when a sovereign power opposes its entry. That’s just as challenging when the United States has declared the situation genocide.

If this is a “profound test,” then the Administration has an obligation to offer options and backing.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee should ask UN Ambassador John Bolton these questions on Thursday (September 28), when he appears before them as their hearing witness on “Darfur: Prospects for Peace.” [UPDATE 9/26: Hearing abruptly cancelled! Hmm.] Senator Biden has called for a no-fly zone, along with Committee colleagues Senators Voinovich, Dodd, Chafee, Feingold, Coleman, Nelson and Kerry. Does the Administration support a no-fly zone? How about forceful intervention despite resistance from Khartoum? Doubling humanitarian aid? Giving the African Union forces there increased air assets and support? (more…)

There is strong bipartisan support for stopping the bloodshed in Darfur, Sudan. Many rightfully cheered the peace agreement reached in Abuja last week, including PSA’s Brian Vogt.

The 150-page plus agreement is good news – and calls for disarming the Janjaweed militias by October and the rebel groups after that. The ambitious accord (summary or whole agreement here) also directs the creation of buffer zones around the camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Sudan and providing for humanitarian access corridors where rebel forces and Sudanese Armed Forces cannot go. 

Ok, that’s really easy. 

To get a feeling of the scale of the problem, look at the humbling maps constructed by the State Department’s Humanitarian Information Unit, showing the vast areas of IDP camps — the places needing protection. Then look at their map demonstrating the wide areas of attacks during 2005, to understand how big a task it is likely to be.

Whose job will this be? Certainly the parties to the agreement are expected to live by it – including the Government of Sudan, the Janjaweed and rebel groups. But an expanded role is also being directed for the African Union (AU) mission in Sudan, now comprised of roughly 7,000 personnel. (FYI: The AU’s first peacekeeping operation was in Burundi, in 2003. Darfur is the second operation.) In March, the members of the Security Council directed the UN headquarters staff to prepare plans for the AU mission to transition to a United Nations operation. While Khartoum has opposed the UN deploying to Darfur, the AU commander recently called for the UN to provide support, as has the United States.

With the Darfur agreement in hand, planning for a stronger peace operation there can really take hold. The United Nations, however, is strapped, leading 15 other peace operations with over 80,000 military and civilian personnel in the field. A new mission in Darfur – the size of Texas – will need nations to provide more than lip service to the UN and offer capable and sizable forces, equipment and financing at a minimum. Congress is on the verge of approving $130 million in the fiscal year 2006 appropriations supplemental for peacekeeping in Darfur. This funding is badly needed, especially at a time when the US budget for UN peace operations is already short by hundreds of millions and the Bush Administration has not yet asked Congress for what it really needs for 2007, including for Darfur.  

These days it seems that good news is hard to come by.  When I open the paper in the morning I usually brace myself for another onslaught of destruction and desperation – whether that be Iraq, Iran, or the many conflicts in Africa.  However, today I was greeted by the good news that it seems that the largest rebel group operating in Darfur has been convinced to sign onto a peace agreement.  I’ve written previously that this horrible genocide deserves immediate action by both Democrats and Republicans and I feel somewhat encouraged by events in the past week that this actually happened. 

On Sunday I attended the Save Darfur rally on the national mall.  I’ve been to my share of political rallies before.  Most of the ones that I’ve attended draw a similar cadre of people – usually those who would consider themselves on the political left.  This rally, however, was certainly a much more diverse group.  There were the expected internationalist do gooders, but also substantial representation from fundamentalist Christians.  There also were a large number of Jewish groups in attendance.  The speakers at the rally also were an interesting mix that included both Democrats (Nancy Pelosi, Barak Obama, Jon Corzine) and Republicans (Frank Wolf, Michael Steele).  While the speakers overall tended Democratic, I was encouraged by the Republican representation. 

On Sunday night it seemed that the peace talks had broken down because the rebel groups had rejected the proposed agreement.  Granted, it seems that the Sudanese government supported the agreement only after it was clear that it wouldn’t pass due to rebel opposition.  Nevertheless, the Bush administration made a last ditch effort to salvage this agreement.  Robert Zoellick, who has been very personally invested in the issue, was sent over to help renegotiate this seemingly doomed deal.  After several extended deadlines, Zoellick’s participation along with that of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo seemed to provide the final push necessary to save the deal.  (more…)