THE PLANK JULY 12, 2009
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I'm always skeptical when someone criticizes an Obama official for "naively favoring carrots over sticks" in our dealings with another country. Too often, such complaints are cover for demagogues who consider any negotiation appeasement. Yet it's becoming harder and harder to deny that this is a more or less undistorted description of the approach being taken by Barack Obama's Darfur envoy, Major General Scott Gration.
What Gration, and the United States, want Khartoum to do at this point is relatively straightforward: in the short term, to readmit the humanitarian aid groups that were expelled after President Bashir was indicted for war crimes (only a few with limited capacity have been allowed to return, under different names); and in the long term, to accept a peace deal that lets Darfur's refugees return home, and guarantees them physical security and political representation.
The question is how to persuade the Sudanese government to come around on these issues. And the general consensus among Sudan watchers is that sticks work better than carrots. As a joint statement by Sudan policy groups recently put it, "[T]he Sudanese government responds much more directly to pressures than they do to incentives."
Here's why I'm worried Gration is getting the balance wrong.
Click here to read the full article.
--Barron YoungSmith
5 comments
The Sudan policy group's statement referred to is here: www.enoughproject.org/.../president-obama-and-sudan-blueprint-peace
I read it as pretty much a bunch of platitudes given that it appears there are not many good sticks available. More experienced human-rights organizations typically steer away from even the hint of using military confrontation to solve such problems because of the high risk of it running out of control causing an even greater catastrophe - as we saw in Iraq. This reality is, of course, deeply frustrating to anyone interested in humanity.
- ndmackenzie
July 12, 2009 at 6:50pm
BYS:
"I'm always skeptical when someone criticizes an Obama official for 'naively favoring carrots over sticks' in our dealings with another country."
george:
I'm always skeptical when the elephants select billion dollar bailouts as the tool of choice in dealing with the miscreants on Wall Street, while selecting all-out war as the tool of choice in dealing with the miscreants overseas.
Or the manner in which they carefully select one thug regime for their wraith while ignoring another thug regime altogether.
As close as I have come to understanding this hypocrisy is that some thugs are ours and some thugs aren't.
I'm even more skeptical, however, by those who insist the donkeys don't do the same thing.
Just as I am skeptical by those who insist the mainstream media is always quick to point out this hypocrisy.
Really?
List some examples of this. How about the first 5 that pop in your head.
george walton
- iambiguous
July 12, 2009 at 6:58pm
The Primary Weapon: That's A Nice Senate Seat You've Got There, Unspecified Moderate Democrat
- Anonymous
July 13, 2009 at 10:10am
The genocidal government in Khartoum has to be ecstatic that Scott Gration has been posted to their dreary capital. One does not have to be a neoconservative - and I am certainly not - to realize that carrots are sometimes just devoured by rabbits with no quid pro quo. How would one go about building a bilateral relationship with President Bashir, anyhow?
- liberal reformer
July 13, 2009 at 12:21pm
What's really sad is seeing the Darfur activist community largely bite their tongues -- had George W. Bush's administration declared "the genocide is over" and made other overtures to Darfur, do you think we'd hear such polite, nuanced language? Anyone want to quote Samantha Power's book to the Administration? Like, um, Samantha Power -- or after using the "monster" charge on Hillary Clinton is all out of outrage?
- Lymon1
July 13, 2009 at 1:29pm