While candidate Obama spoke out fiercely against genocide in Darfur, President Obama extended a hand to the architects of the killing in Khartoum. The Administration’s policy review on Sudan, completed late last year, promised a new strategy of engagement with Sudan, spearheaded by Sudanese envoy, General Scott Gration.
For the moment, that policy, Gration claims, is on the verge of yielding positive results. “We have had agreements in the past; most have failed. I think this is different.” Gration’s optimism is powered by the signing by President Omar al-Bashir of a ceasefire deal in Doha with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the largest rebel group in Darfur.
The Doha pact lays out a timetable for negotiations, promises to protect and defend Darfur’s residents from violence and intimidation, and commits Khartoum to establishing fair representation in democratic institutions. Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor, has also joined in the peace process, lowering tensions between rival neighbors.
While the ceasefire may be a positive sign, Sudan has a long way to go until it reaches stability. Other Darfur rebel groups have denounced the North’s deal with JEM. Additional points of controversy include a proposed referendum in 2011 to determine Darfur’s potential independence, resolution of war crime charges laid against al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court, and the upcoming April presidential elections to be held in most of Sudan, including the non-Arab south.
The Obama Administration is likely to claim a rare foreign policy victory in Darfur. But the U.S. should not get ahead of itself. With an estimated 300,000 people dead and 2.7 million displaced, any movement towards a permanent resolution is welcome. But the negotiations are only one step towards reducing violence in Darfur and must not be used as an excuse to prematurely lift sanctions. Sudan’s process of recovery has a long way to go and it must be held accountable.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today used the annual celebration of the anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution to announce that Iran has become a “nuclear state.” Although the bombastic dictator has made this claim before, his exultant announcement came shortly after Iran had announced that it would enrich uranium to the 20 percent level that it claims it needs to fuel a research reactor that is scheduled to run out of fuel later this year.
Ahmadinejad proclaimed: “I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists.” In a speech broadcast live on state television he said: “We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don’t enrich (to this level) because we don’t need it.” He told the crowd: “When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb. If we wanted to manufacture a bomb, we would announce it.”
Ahmadinejad spoke before a huge crowd in Tehran mobilized by the regime, in part by transporting loyalists in from outlying regions. The opposition Green Movement also staged counter-demonstrations despite the attacks and intimidating tactics used by Iran’s police, Revolutionary Guards, and Basij militia. Many opposition leaders were attacked by thugs when they tried to meet with protesters. Presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi and former President Mohamed Khatami were physically beaten.
Opposition sources charged that the police also fired tear gas and shots at an opposition rally led by Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s chief rival in the fraudulent presidential elections last June.
Ahmadinejad yesterday also made a phone call to Syrian leader Bashar Assad in which he warned Israel against attacking Syria, Lebanon or elsewhere in the region. “If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all.” Tensions have been rising along Israel’s border with Lebanon, which was the battlefield for a 34-day war between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group in 2006. Hezbollah has been supplied with thousands of Iranian-made rockets and other weapons and has regained its military muscle in southern Lebanon after losing many gunmen and much territory in 2006. Ahmadinejad’s phone call is a pointed signal to Israel that if it launches a preventive strike at Iran’s nuclear program, then Tehran will order Hezbollah to launch terrorist and rocket attacks against Israel.
Iran’s provocative defiance of five U.N. Security Council resolutions and three sets of sanctions now puts additional pressure on the United States and other concerned countries to respond with much stronger sanctions. But China, which has opposed additional sanctions under the pretense that more sanctions would derail negotiations, is not likely to be cooperative.
And Russia also has defended Iran’s interests at the Security Council and cannot be trusted to support effective sanctions against Iran.
The United States is pushing for the strongest possible sanctions at the U.N. Security Council but the end result of these efforts will not approach the “crippling sanctions” that the Obama Administration has promised. Washington therefore must think outside the U.N. box and press its allies and other countries to impose stronger sanctions outside the U.N. framework. Iran would be hard hit by bans on foreign investment, gasoline exports, trade with firms affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other measures undertaken by the European Union, Japan, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council or other countries.
But before it can ask other countries to impose stronger sanctions, the Obama Administration should support stronger U.S. sanctions which both houses of Congress have voted to approve.
The Obama Administration also should take a lesson from Ronald Reagan and support Iran’s freedom-seeking opposition movement.
Given the failure of the Obama Administration’s engagement policy to halt Iran’s nuclear efforts, Israel soon may be forced to take military action against Iran. For a look at the implications for the United States, see:
An Israeli Preventive Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Sites: Implications for the United States.
For more on U.S. Iran policy, see: Iran Briefing Room