So How Come We Haven't Stopped It?

That policy has endured as Darfur continues to burn. Along with Powell, former deputy secretary Robert B. Zoellick and Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, remained staunch advocates for engaging with Khartoum. In August, Frazer told reporters: "We believe that President Bashir and the Sudanese government want peace in Darfur." U.S. government sources have said that administration officials recently offered to lift some unilateral trade and investment sanctions imposed during the Clinton administration and move toward normalizing relations in exchange for Sudan's acceptance of U.N. peacekeepers. Khartoum refused.

Now, as the mayhem in Darfur escalates, Bush may have run out of patience. Administration officials say he regularly complains to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley that more must be done. But to address both the administration's counterterrorism and human rights goals will require overcoming policy inertia and ignorance about the nature of the Khartoum regime -- two requirements perhaps beyond the reach of Bush's current team.

Consider prior efforts to influence the regime in Sudan. In 1995, Sudanese officials were implicated in the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Responding to the regime's failure to extradite terrorism suspects, the U.N. Security Council imposed travel restrictions on Sudanese officials and sanctions against Sudan Airways. Feeling pressured, the regime dismantled terrorist training camps and revoked passports given to known terrorists. And when the regime faced the prospect of a united armed rebellion in 2005, it signed a deal with southern-based rebels.

Clearly, diplomatic, economic and military pressure can have an impact -- both in pursuit of an end to the Darfur crisis and in the ability to access important counterterrorism information.

Last week, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the United States and other governments moved closer to a deal with Khartoum allowing for a stronger peacekeeping force in Darfur. However, the regime retains control of the timing of new deployments. The likely result is that a few hundred more observers will arrive in the next six months. More peacekeepers will help only if there is a new peace deal and the Janjaweed militias begin to be dismantled.

The problem remains leverage. Possible pressure points include the threat of sanctions on Sudanese companies owned by ruling party officials doing business abroad; capital-market sanctions on foreign firms dealing with the regime; NATO planning to deploy forces to Darfur; and sharing information with the International Criminal Court to accelerate indictments of Khartoum officials for crimes against humanity.

Khartoum has taken the measure of the United States; it understands that from time to time the president may use the word "genocide" and that the State Department may issue a strongly worded statement to mollify religious activists. But walking loudly and carrying a toothpick only emboldens the regime to escalate its attacks in Darfur.

President Clinton often says that the biggest regret he has about his presidency was not responding effectively to the Rwandan genocide. If Bush does not change course, he may someday echo Clinton, lamenting that hundreds of thousands of Darfurian lives were needlessly extinguished -- on his watch.

jprendergast@crisisgroup.org

John Prendergast, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, was director

of African affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.