Is Obama's Man Too Nice for Sudan?

"I feel like I'm watching George Bush."

Such was the reaction of the person I sat next to yesterday while watching the White House's live webcast with US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration. Indeed, Gration's rambling answers to questions posed by Save Darfur President Jerry Fowler and STAND Student Director Layla Amjadi were oddly reminiscent of our verbally-challenged ex-president. Only a handful of questions received a direct answer. An idea for drinking game came to mind as we listened to repeated phases like "psychological stuff" and "a bright future" or "a future that is...bright."

Personal style aside, Gration is clearly committed to his job and is diligently trying to move all of the pieces into place for sustainable peace for Africa's largest nation. And he is clearly a good guy -- a nice guy trying to do the right thing. But is he too much of a nice guy to deal with the hard-nosed, militant, manipulative authoritarians in Khartoum?

While Gration rightly notes that we have to deal with the bullies in Khartoum whether we like it or not, his nice-guy approach at least has the appearance of failing to push the government of Sudan to change its brutal ways. The US might not have infinite leverage, but Khartoum is quite keen on normalized relations with the US -- they wouldn't hire lobbyists and take out full-page ads in DC newspapers if they weren't -- but we've yet to see any indication that Gration is using this to his advantage.

The most troubling example relates to the civilian protection crisis in Darfur. When the conversation turned to Khartoum's expulsion of 13 humanitarian organizations from Darfur in March, Jerry hit the proverbial nail on the head when he told Gration, "You've given the government a lot of credit for averting -- barely -- a catastrophe that they set in motion." Jerry then went on to ask, "yes or no," if unimpeded humanitarian access would be one of his benchmarks for progress from Khartoum.

Gration's answer was troubling. He focused entirely on the security situation, noting that the government is not in control of the entire region, and many areas are inaccessible to the UNAMID peacekeeping force. This is partly true, but what Gration neglected to acknowledge -- as he has in the past -- the Khartoum's relentless efforts to intentionally obstruct humanitarian access and impede UNAMID deployment. The government is clearly not in control of security in all of Darfur, but they are in control of ridiculous bureaucratic impediments on aid agencies and on UNAMID, not to mention the harassment and intimidation of their staff, and many areas of Darfur are off-limits to UNAMID because the government prohibits the peacekeepers from reaching them. UNAMID can only go where the government of Sudan says it can, and this authority is used with well-documented (if not well publicized) abandon.

Gration also claims that improved humanitarian access is difficult to measure. Not so -- all you have to do is ask the agencies on the ground.

[Photo from the webcast by Martha Heinemann Bixby for the Save Darfur Coalition, used with written permission from the organization.]