Rather than threaten military intervention in Darfur the West should have called for the implementation of emergency plans and extended economic aid by air to the two million displaced Sudanese. Nor are demands for economic sanctions an appropriate means to pressure Khartoum into action to avert the catastrophe. They not only smack of the collective punishment of the Sudanese people, but also increase the chances of the recent peace agreement with the southern rebels floundering. That, in turn, increases the chance of the conflict being resumed and could well lead to secession and an independent government in the south, which would serve nothing beyond American interests. The interests and security of neighbouring states would be undermined, and Sudan would become a fertile breeding ground for terrorist organisations. Sanctions have repeatedly proved ineffective in dealing with dictatorial regimes. It is the people that pay the price, not their rulers, as the experience of Iraq amply shows. Iraqis, who once enjoyed one of the region's highest standards of living, were plunged into destitution by the imposition of sanctions while for Saddam Hussein and his regime it remained business as usual. And after a decade of sanctions, which left civil society exhausted and hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable members of society dead, the forces of 32 states and 140,000 American soldiers have been incapable of imposing security. Throughout this period it has been the Iraqi people, and not their rulers, who suffered and who continue to suffer. International public opinion too often fails to distinguish between the security of a state and the security of a particular regime. It is the interests of peoples, though, and the stability and security of states, that must come before the interests of regimes, whether or not they are superpowers.
