The Absurdity of Darfur

American Special Envoy Andrew Natsios is in Sudan, presumably to explain the thinking behind the United States strengthening sanctions against the Islamic government of President Omar al-Bashir, while simultaneously providing $700 million dollars of infrastructure construction to the same government. All this against the backdrop of regional violence which is getting worse since UN diplomacy achieved the Darfur Peace Agreement signed May 5th of this year.

Analysis 1: “Currently both sides of this [peace agreement] are trying to solve the conflict militarily,” said European envoy Pekka Haavisto during a three-day visit to Khartoum. "This is of course as far off the peace agreement as possible. We are giving both sides the message you should act in a disciplined way, you should give peace a chance."

The peace agreement signed by one of three western region rebel groups isn’t doing any body any good and chanting “give peace a chance” won’t stop civil war.

The government of Omar al-Bashir is fighting tribal groups loyal to Hassan Abdellah al-Turabi who invited and hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from 1991 to 1996. In some sense Sudan is fighting the war on the jihadists in the way Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has failed to do in his country. The problem for western sensibilities is the Sudanese are fighting an ancient style of warfare where you aggressively kill and disperse your enemy. Al-Bashir's intention to control his country is evidenced by his refusal to allow UN forces inside his borders and in achieving peace with the eastern rebels, thus securing control of Sudan’s only oil export port.

Analysis 2: Complicating all this is a decades-long struggle in Sudan over the nature of the state—how far a supposedly militant Islamist regime can go in reformulating political and cultural life in the country. As early as 1966, Sadiq al-Mahdi, descendent leader of a historical and respected political community and head of the sometime governing Umma party, declared, “The dominant feature of our nation is an Islamic one … and this Nation will not have its entity identified and its prestige and pride preserved except under an Islamic revival.” Militant Islamists in Sudan, however, push for the programmatic exclusion of other beliefs.

So in Sudan the absurdity of our interaction with the Islamic world is on full display. We have Condoleezza Rice saying diplomatic things like “Darfur, which is another one of these conflicts where you have an inequitable distribution of resources”, while Osama Bin Laden is saying Jihadist things like “I am inviting the mujahidin and their supporters in the Sudan and other countries around, including the Arabian peninsula in particular, to prepare all that is needed for a long-term war against the Crusaders and thieves in western Sudan”.

It appears the Bush administration has come to the conclusion it is better to deal with those Muslims who value wealth and power in this life, and let them suppress the Muslims who desire to exemplify the corruptive absolutism of their holy war faith.