The United Nations clearly is not making strides in resolving the crisis in Darfur, but there is an institution capable of intervention: NATO. As my friend Eugene Oregon noted, Wesley Clark was on NPR yesterday discussing his proposal for NATO involvement in the region.
Even if the African Union can overcome the political obstacles to strengthening its mandate in Darfur — and that’s a very big “if” — it’s in no position to get such large numbers of troops on the ground in such a short time. Despite the European Union and NATO assistance, the African Union mission looks set to fall short of its target of 7,700 troops by September.
The UN Security Council, in consultation with the AU, should request and authorize NATO to deploy a multinational “bridging force” to bring the combined force level in Darfur immediately up to 12,000 to 15,000 troops while the African Union prepares and deploys its own forces.
This is not an easy recommendation to make for Darfur, where all multinational organizations have been at pains to keep non-African troops out of Sudan. But the notion that the atrocities in Darfur are solely African problems requiring exclusively African solutions has to be reconsidered. These ongoing offenses are crimes against all humanity. They demand an international response that gives human life priority over diplomatic sensitivities.
Clark, a board member of the International Crisis Group, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and someone who’s carried out a peacekeeping mission through the alliance, knows of what he speaks.
The scope of Clark’s plan may sound modest, but therein lays the point. Just 12,000 troops, serving in a peacekeeping capacity, can, as Ed Kilgore noted, go a long way towards “stop[ping] the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”