A deadline in Darfur

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE KNOWS what it will take to stop the slaughter of innocents in Sudan. Yet the international response to the crisis hinges on a kind of domino effect, with the world waiting for the first tile to fall; meanwhile, soldiers and government-armed militias murder and rape with impunity. There’s a chance that the first domino could drop today. If it doesn’t, the United States and its allies should kick it over.

What is needed in the short term is aircraft and other assistance from NATO to back up 7,000 African Union peacekeepers -- whose mission is to protect villagers in Sudan’s Darfur region from the forces that have killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced 2 million more in the name of battling a rebellion. Eventually the AU troops should be replaced with a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur, involving about 20,000 soldiers.

The problem is that NATO doesn’t want to act without the backing of the United Nations, which wants permission from the African Union, which wants permission from the Sudanese government, which would prefer to keep foreign troops out and has been holding out the hope that it would reach a peace deal on its own. The AU-sponsored talks between the government in Khartoum and the rebels have reached a critical juncture. After Sunday’s deadline came and went without an agreement, it was extended for 48 hours, giving both sides until today.

Even if a deal is reached, it probably won’t bring peace to Darfur for some time. The Sudanese government would have to live up to its promise to disarm the militias, unlikely to happen anytime soon because Khartoum denies arming them to begin with. U.N. peacekeepers would still be needed to monitor and enforce any cease-fire.

If there is no deal, it should be abundantly clear to the African Union that U.N. peacekeepers are needed even without Sudanese permission. The AU troops are too poorly armed, too spread out and have too restricted a mandate to do much good. Strong pressure from the United States, particularly on North African allies (such as Egypt) that have disgracefully sided with Khartoum in the past, would reinforce the message. And NATO can and should send aircraft to the region to enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur, which would at least stem Khartoum’s abominable practice of using helicopter gunships to strafe villages.

NATO and the U.N. are traditionally reluctant to intervene during humanitarian crises, usually to the shame of both organizations. There has seldom been a better case for intervention, though, than the one presented by Sudan.