Solutions for Darfur

NY Times today is running an ope-ed about the sitn in Darfur. Mark Helprin thinks the way to end the violence and displacement is to "Make Sudan An Offer It Can't Refuse".
In short: he suggests that US should give Pres. Bashir an ultimatum - leave or else. And then bomb the living daylights out of his civil and military infrastructures.

"Which would the regime in Sudan prefer? To be annihilated, or to discontinue its campaign of mass murder in Darfur? Given Sudan’s record, very few nations would be willing to come to its aid with other than a pro forma whimper, and given the geography and the air and naval balance, no nation could. Though many a repressive dictatorship would protest, and Sudan’s patron, China, might determine to speed up the formation of the blue-water navy it is already building, little else would change except for the better.

This is especially so because only in the worst case would a military strike actually be necessary. One of the chief attractions of such an initiative is that, if properly directed, it could, one way or another, military strike or not, accomplish its aims. These are, first, to stop the mass killings and dislocations; and, second, to pressure Sudan into negotiating settlements in good faith (which it need not do as long as it retains its habitual option of simply murdering the populations it finds troublesome)."

A few thoughts:
* And then what?
After we've bombed them into submission, then what happens to the country? Darfur gets autonomy? Independence? Who is going to support it? It will be like giving birth to a failed state from the get-go. I think the Iraq misadventure has taught us that threatening force, even using it should only come after thorough preparation for the Day After.

* It's only been five years... what's changed?
In other words, what Helprin offers here as newsworthy is really not so new, and not so worthy. Military intervention and the threat of it has been an option for five years now. But very very very clearly, the "international community" has not embarked down that course. What has changed? Not much really. So the question to Helprin then is, if the US or Europe have yet to intervene despite five years of the Darfur tragedy, what makes you think they will do so now?

It is unrealistic to expect an about-face from the world powers. Although the first African American President of the USA might have something to say about that....