What Are Our Realistic Options in Darfur?

Over at A Second Hand Conjecture, Lance posts a tragic reminder of the situation in Darfur, where the humanitarian catastrophe only appears likely to worsen. But in spite of my own emotional distress over the situation, I can't bring myself to turn a blind eye to the implications of the calls for the outside world to somehow "stop" the ethnic cleansing taking place there. I believe it behooves all parties concerned to face up to some hard truths about the constraints we would face in any attempt to change the course of events in western Sudan.

The first fact we have to live up to is that deploying UN forces is very unlikely to help, if history is any indication. But it wouldn't be just because the UN is the UN; the current atrocities are occurring under the noses of the 7000 African Union troops already deployed there. Other diplomatic sticks aren't going to find a lot of success their either. The government of Sudan accurately sees itself as engaged in an existential struggle, and the nation is so impoverished already that it's likely no one there could even notice the effect of any type of economic sanctions. The truth is, the only way anyone is going to stop this horror from the outside is to overthrow the government of Sudan. Who is prepared to do that? Who is capable of doing that? The last time the US followed the UN into Africa was in Somalia. Who's ready for a sequel in Sudan?

As awful as the situation in Darfur appears, it should not be forgotten that it is taking place in what is arguably the most awful place in the world. There are no good guys and bad guys in any clear-cut moral sense, but rather a host of clashing tribal aggressors in an area that has known little more than grotesque privation and civil war for decades. The current conflict is the result of the Sudanese government's response to what were initially successful attacks on the government by rebels based in the Darfur region. The government found itself forced to pay and arm the Janjaweed militias to protect them from the rebels. And thus, the ethnic cleansing genie was let out of the bottle.

So let's cut to the chase: what are our real choices here? First, we could invade Sudan, geographically the largest nation in Africa, more than twice the size of Afghanistan and Iraq put together, and attempt to neutralize the military dictatorship that rules the country and suppress the ethnically Arab tribes in the west. Now honestly, is this even a realistic option? Even if the UN sends 20,000 disinterested Blue Helmets, will it help? There are some thirty-five or forty million people in the Sudan, which is ten to fifteen million more people than live in Iraq where we have eight times as many troops engaged.

Then there's option two: evacuate the black African population of Darfur, presuming that they are willing to leave their ancestral lands. But this option is also a no-go if for no other reason than because slightly more than half of the population of Sudan is made up of black Africans. It's simply not reasonable to believe that we could evacuate potentially millions and millions of black Sudanese without creating a humanitarian crisis worse than the current one. 

There is a third option, the option which I support, although with a certain reluctance. That is to provide the ethnic cleansees in Darfur with as many M-16s and as much ammunition (and perhaps even a little training) as would be necessary to allow them to defend themselves. Innocent human beings have the natural right of self-defense, and unlike the other two options, arming the victims (especially the women) in Darfur actually stands a chance of relative success. My reluctance comes from not knowing what to do if the cleansees use those weapons to overcome the cleansers and start their own round of genocidal payback.