*Ø* "We cannot save Darfur at the point of a gun"

Simon Jenkins, The Times:

"So what do we do about Sudan? I mean really do, not just pose. Do we scold it? Or do we condemn it, sanction it, threaten it, bomb and invade it? Do we impose 'democracy and prosperity' on Sudan, given that it badly needs both?

"The trouble with interventionists is they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. A year ago I wrote wondering why we were invading Iraq when Sudan might reasonably claim our prior attention. Everyone, except Tony Blair, knew that Iraq was no immediate threat. It just offered an opportune target for a belligerent desire on his part to topple someone nasty. Since all other reasons have evaporated, Mr Blair has virtually admitted as such.

"Yet nothing was as nasty as the regime in Khartoum. Eighteen months ago my e-mails were already buzzing with chatter about religious massacres, ethnic expulsions, starvation, rape and pillage in Sudan. Refugee camps were growing in neighbouring Chad. So what was urgent about one murderous Muslim desert state, Iraq, that was not urgent about another?

"The answer, of course, was that there were no television cameras in Sudan. There was no oil, the regime in Khartoum was being 'helpful' over al-Qaeda and its dying were, quite frankly, black."

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