For months, the White House has been saying that President Obama would personally roll out the results of his administration's long-delayed Sudan Policy Review, which will officially set the direction of U.S. policy for Darfur and South Sudan, a region that will soon decide whether to become an independent country. (Update: Click here to read the text of the actual policy and my analysis.)
Now, the review is finally here. It will be announced by Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and the U.S. envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration. Obama does not plan to attend, most likely because the president's political handlers don't want to further associate him with a policy that has been an ongoing public-relations disaster. That's a shame, because it signals to the world and the government of Sudan that Obama himself is not particularly engaged on the issue, and it's a sad contrast to the deeply concerned speeches Obama gave in front of Save Darfur groups before he became president. (He even co-wrote an introduction to Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast.)
While we won't know the exact contents of the review until we hear today's announcement, the initial press leaks make it sound like a consensus document. It does not include many of the most dramatic policy prescriptions advocated by Scott Gration, who has often spoken about lifting sanctions as soon as possible and otherwise incentivizing Khartoum without applying much in the way of pressure. (He has described his preferences thusly: "We've got to think about giving out cookies. … Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.") For instance, the review does not provide for Sudan's removal from the list of designated State Sponsors of Terrorism, it does not call for an immediate lifting of sanctions without a quid pro quo from Khartoum, and it does not authorize Gration to negotiate directly with Sudan's president, who has been indicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The review also does not adopt Gration's preferred description of the violence in Darfur—he wants to call it "the remnants of genocide," but the policy review is said to maintain that genocide "is taking place" in Darfur.
