Darfur at a Crossroads

I want to welcome you to this discussion of Darfur at a Crossroads: Global Public Opinion and the Responsibility to Protect. For more than four years, the people of Darfur have been subjected to violent attacks, economic deprivation, destruction of property, and forced displacement. The roots of the conflict are a complex mixture of factors, including historical grievances, ethnic tension, disputes over distribution of economic resources and benefits, political questions about balances of power within Sudan, and conflicts over control of scarce natural resources . water, land, and livestock. All of this is exacerbated by the proliferation of arms, the fragmentation of opposition groups, and the policies of governments of Sudan and indeed in the region. The casualty figures in Darfur are high, and they are increasing. More than two million people have been forced from their homes, eighty thousand in the past several months alone. The crisis in Darfur impacts on the still fragile peace process in Southern Sudan and indeed in the region. The fact that Chad now hosts some 220,000 refuges and almost the same number of internally displaced persons is testament to the potential of the Darfur conflict to destabilize the region. Humanitarian organizations have mounted an impressive effort in an extraordinarily difficult situation. This relief effort is costing more than one billion dollars a year. It involves about fourteen thousand humanitarian workers who are assisting almost four million people. But humanitarian access is difficult, and it's been particularly difficult to reach those who are not living in camps. The U.N. estimates that it has access to only 70 percent of those in need of assistance. The security environment is terrifically dangerous, and some nongovernmental organizations have had to suspend operations in parts of the country because of attacks on their staff. Just 10 days ago John Holmes, the new U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, was turned back by soldiers at a military checkpoint on the road to an IDP camp in North Darfur despite high-level assurances from the Sudanese government that he would be given unrestricted access to displaced people. While he attributed this to a communication mishap, he also indicated that his experience was symptomatic of problems that ordinary humanitarian workers faced every day on the ground. But humanitarian operations are only a stopgap measure. Until the conflict is brought to an end, women will continue to be raped, civilians will continue to be killed, and people will continue to flee from their communities in fear. In spite of the 2005 World Summit where the responsibility to protect was launched, and in spite of repeated efforts by the international community to intervene in this situation, these efforts have been unsuccessful. The people of Darfur have been at the crossroads for a long time, and citizens in this country and around the world . at least some citizens . have been demanding action. But there's a gap between public opinion in the U.S. and global public opinion and effective international action. To address how that gap could and should be breached, we have a distinguished lineup of speakers this morning, beginning with Steven Kull, Director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes and editor of World Public Opinion.org, who will release the findings of a new global public opinion survey, which was carried out in partnership with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Steven is a faculty member of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and has played an important role in the BBC World Service Poll of Global Opinion and polls of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He will be followed by Gayle Smith, who is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and director of the International Rights and Responsibilities Program and Energy Opportunity Program. Gayle brings to t his discussion her many years of experience in Africa, where she worked as a journalist for a number of well-known news agencies and also served as special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from 1998 to 2001, and as Gayle will discuss she's also working now with a new initiative called the Enough Campaign, which is a citizen grassroots initiative to stop genocide. Gayle will be followed by Susan Rice, a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies here at the Brookings Institution, who has a distinguished career in public service, including serving as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1997 to 2001 and a special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from 1995 to 1997. Susan has written extensively on African issues and has submitted testimony just a couple of months ago on Darfur before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Jason Small of the State Department will not be participating in this morning's panel, but we know that the State Department is eager to contribute to the debate on Darfur, and we look forward to including their representatives in future events we organize on Darfur. So, we'll begin with Steve and we'll hear his presentation and then have an opportunity for questions directly related to the poll before we hear from Gayle and Susan on some of the broader issues. Thank you. Thank you all for coming this morning. For some decades now, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, previously known as the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations . they just changed their name in the last year . have been conducting polls of the American public periodically, and for some years now the Program on International Policy Attitudes has been working closely in developing and analyzing those polls. In 2006 the Chicago Council decided to conduct its poll not only of the U.S. but also of China and India, and some centers in South Korea, Mexico, and Australia said well, we're interested in participating in some way as well. So we decided to take the lead and recruit more countries, more centers around the world to be part of this larger study so that we could have comparative data around the world, and overall we succeeded in recruiting what was then . we recruited a total of . or is a total now of 18 countries plus the Palestinian territories, and today's release is actually one in a series. Now, since these were independent centers, they decided themselves which questions they would ask, and so in terms of what we have today, we have a total of 14 countries plus the Palestinian territories who participated in the questions related to Darfur and the responsibility to protect. These are the countries that are part of this set of questions: the United States, Mexico, Argentina, France, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia; then, in the Middle East . Israel and the Palestinian territories and Iran; and then in Asia . China, India, South Korea, and Thailand. We have about what represents here about half of the world population. Now, as far as the methodology, just . there's a lot more information in the handout that you've probably already received. The samples ranged from 593 in Israel to 2,458 in India. In most cases, it was about a thousand. That means that that the margin of error ranges from plus or minus 2.0 to 4.1 percent. The people for the . the group that was interviewed in relation to the questions we're exploring today . we have a total of 18,679 respondents. The polls were conducted from June 2006 through March 2007. Okay, now, the question . the driving question in our analysis and in the questions that we formulated is are we seeing the emergence of a new international norm in regard to the potential for the United Nations to intervene in the internal affairs of a state in the event of severe human rights abuses? Now, as you may know, there was a world summit in 2005 that unanimously endorsed the following statement . this is an abbreviated version: "The international community through the United Nations has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action in a timely and decisive manner through the Security Council should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, so clearly the implication here is that this could entail the use of military force." So, we wanted to dig deeper. Does this represent something that is . does this attitude appear in the world public as a whole? So, the first question we want to ask is: do people around the world think the U.N. Security Council has the right to intervene in the event of severe human rights abuses? Again, the question is does it have the right to intervene? So, the question we asked is, "Do you think that the U.N. Security Council should have the right to authorize the use of military force to prevent severe human rights violations such as genocide?" And, as you can see, all the countries that answered this question . a clear majority said that it should have this right: 83 percent in the U.S. and 73 percent in Mexico. In Europe, 85 percent in France . that was actually the highest with the U.S. close behind; 69 percent in Ukraine; 64 percent in Russia. 83 percent in Israel . Israel has one of the . not surprisingly is one of the strongest on this issue. And the Palestinian territories, 78 percent; in Iran, 69 percent . I think that's quite interesting; South Korea, 74 percent; and, quite interestingly as well, China at 72 percent. Of course China is a key player in this process and, as we know, the Chinese government has not always been supportive of the idea of the U.N. intervening in this way. 63 percent in India and 62 percent in Thailand. The white space between the "should" and the "should not" represents those who say don't know, and, as you can see, in some questions those don't know responses are quite large, particularly in the developing countries. Now, we also have some data from Globe Scan from 2005 from a separate poll that asks this same question: "Should the U.N. have the right to authorize force to stop severe human rights violations such as genocide?" And, as you can see, in Africa there's also quite strong support for this idea . 80 percent in Ghana; 75 percent in Kenya; 66 percent in Nigeria; 66 percent in Tanzania; 65 percent in Zimbabwe; 64 percent in Cameroon; 55 percent in Angola. South Africa was the only country that didn't have a clear majority, but it was a clear plurality at 47 percent, and across these eight countries, on average 65 percent approved of the idea of the U.N. having the right to authorize force to stop severe human rights violations such as genocide. Now, does the U.N. Security Council have the responsibility to intervene in the event of severe human rights abuses? This obviously raises the bar considerably higher. One is yes, okay, they have the right if they should choose but is there some imperative here? Do people expect the U.N. Security Council to act in the event of such human rights abuses? So, the question went, "Some people say that the U.N. Security Council has the responsibility to authorize the use of force to protect people from severe human rights violations such as genocide, even against the will of their own government." There is the key line. And that was put front and center so that there was really no ambiguity. So, obviously, this raises the bar considerably higher than just does the U.N. Security Council have the right. "Do you think that the U.N. Security Council does or does not have this responsibility?" Now, the numbers are not as strong as to whether the U.N. Security Council has the right, but they are still quite strong. Seventy-four percent in the U.S. say that the U.N. Security Council has this responsibility. A plurality in Argentina of 48 percent say that it does as opposed to just 27 percent who say it does not, with a substantial number not knowing. Armenia, clear majority, 66 percent; Poland, 54 percent; France, 54 percent. France is an interesting one. Keep your eye on France, because in general, it's quite strong, but it also has the highest number saying that it does not have the responsibility with 39 percent and not very many saying there that they don't know. A plurality in Russia of 48 percent to 31 percent not; and Ukraine a plurality of 40 percent to 16 percent. Once again, the Palestinian territories and Israel expressed rather a high number, 69 percent in the Palestinian territories and 64 percent in Israel. Now, for what it might be the most interesting number, 76 percent among the Chinese say that the U.N. Security Council has the responsibility to protect, take this action. Slight majority, 51 percent in India with large numbers saying don't know; just a quarter saying does not; and a plurality in Thailand, a 2-to-1 ratio between those who say it has and does not have it. So, again, there's not . we did not find a single country that disagreed with this position. The only variation was between whether it was a plurality or a clear majority, and with the exception of France, no other country . in every case it was 3 out of 10 or less saying that it does not have this responsibility. So, putting all this together, you can see that of all these 14 countries plus the Palestinian territories, in every case you have some endorsement of the idea of the U.N. Security Council taking such action, either saying that it has the right or that it has the responsibility. In addition to the countries that we just mentioned, Mexico, Iran, and South Korea . they didn't ask the responsibility question, but in every case 7 out of 10 or so said that it does have the right. And, as you can see, in every case the number saying that they have the right tends to be larger than those who say that it has the responsibility, but still the responsibility is . the numbers on responsibility are quite strong. Okay, so now how do these principals apply to Darfur? We need to remember that when we're dealing with these kinds of questions, there is not necessarily a very high level of awareness of the situation. Even in Africa we found that in 2005 with Globe Scan only 36 percent said that they were really following the situation there, and that's actually the same number that Pugh just recently found in the United States, but substantial numbers of people do not know anything about it. I was doing focus groups in India, and I was really quite struck how at the very low level even among rather educated people. So, the first question we were trying to determine is what the normative orientation is. Now we're trying to see, okay, how do people think this applies to the situation in Darfur? So, we said, "Do you think that in regards to the violence that is occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan, the U.N. Security Council has a responsibility to authorize intervention, has the right but not a responsibility to authorize intervention, or does not have the right to authorize intervention?" Well, let's start on the right there. "How many say does not have the right to authorize intervention?" Well, as you can see, in every case it's quite small. Never more than 20 percent. So . but you can also see, just to the left, very large white spaces, very large numbers of people saying don't know. So, it's not well formulated in the minds of many. So, starting with the United States, 48 percent say that the U.N. Security Council has the responsibility, and another 35 percent the right. So, a very large majority endorsing the idea of some action and 48 percent perceiving it as imperative. In Argentina, 22 percent has the responsibility, 15 percent the right. In France, you have the highest, 55 percent saying that it has the responsibility and 29 percent the right. Poland, 23 percent the responsibility, 23 percent the right; Armenia, 29 and 15; Ukraine, 10 and 22. And, again, with all three of those countries, big percentages saying they don't know, presumably just because they don't have enough information. Israel, very strong . 46 percent has the responsibility, 31 percent the right. India, also surprisingly strong given the low levels of education there . 29 percent has the responsibility, 30 percent the right. China, also quite strong . 20 percent the responsibility, 38 percent the right; and Thailand, large don't know . 17 percent the responsibility, 17 percent the right. So, in every case you have a clear plurality or a majority saying that it has one or the other, but it's not fully formed. Clearly, in the more developed countries, it's a much, much stronger point of view. Now, we also had one question in Africa. It's not a perfect question for what we're trying to do here, but it is still in some ways indicative. The question was, "In the event of a conflict like Darfur happening in your country, which one of the following, if any, would you most prefer to intervene to help resolve the conflict?" and the were offered four options, and one of them is to not have any foreign military, and that's what's most interesting to me is that only 11 percent said we don't want any foreign military; 57 percent endorsed one of the three options that did involve outside intervention, with the largest number, 30 percent, saying the United Nations, 22 percent the African Union, and 5 percent rich countries for a total of 57 percent. Another 7 percent said all, which . it's not exactly clear what that means. It was a volunteered response, but probably some of those were generally endorsing the idea of some kind of outside intervention. So, here again you see a real receptivity to the idea of outside intervention among Africans. Okay, on the use of troops, we asked, "Would you favor or oppose the use of troops from your country to be part of an international peacekeeping force to stop the killing in Darfur?" And here the French charged right to the head of the pack, 84 percent saying that they favor it, which I thought was rather remarkable given that the French government has not been . has been somewhat . well, I won't characterize it. You follow the news. In the U.S., 65 percent approve of the U.S. contributing U.S. troops to be part of an international peacekeeping force to stop the killing in Darfur. But this comes up in other polls as well, with majorities endorsing U.S. participation in some kind of multilateral operation in Darfur. Israel . now . but then all of the others basically you do not see majorities endorsing the idea of participation. Now, Israel . that's not too hard to understand, but with most of these you're looking at countries that have not . with the exception of Poland . have not, in general, participated in peacekeeping operations. So, I think probably these low numbers are more reflective of their concept that this is not the kind of thing that we do; this is the kind of thing that the great powers do. But it's also interesting that you don't have large numbers rejecting opposition; you do have large numbers saying don't know. So, in summary, coming back to our original question, do we see the signs of an emerging norm, and I think the answer is clearly yes, and historically that's how these things tend to happen. It tends to be the public's . the idea is generally expressed by elites, and the public endorses it and then governments tend to follow, even though they may have it endorsed it in principle.When we look at the emergency of, say, civil rights, in the United States, there's this myth that the American public was somehow dragged into the era of civil rights. But even previous to Brown vs. Board of Education, you had majorities endorsing the Civil Rights Act. So, the public, again, tends to be ahead, and publics really . and governments tend to follow only when the publics are already there. And that doesn't mean the publics are demanding it, only that they . yeah, that makes sense. It might even seem self-evident, and that is clearly the situation that we have not only in the U.S. but around the world, that people perceive that, yes, the idea of national sovereignty being this preeminent principle that cannot be contradicted. That just doesn't hold when it comes to severe human rights abuses such as genocide, and we now see that this is spreading. There's clearly an indication that this is growing, and it's a question now of the kind of . how are governments going to, in a sense, follow through on the principles that they, in a sense, have endorsed, such as in the responsibility to protect summit, the genocide convention, and so on. Often there's this assumption that oh, publics will only support using military force or taking action when it's related to their national interest, narrowly defined, and that is not really sustained by polling data. So, now we will . let me just take a few questions on the poll itself. If it's a question about sort of the broader themes, the broader questions, perhaps you can wait for the larger . the discussion after we hear from the other commentaries. Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much. I think this poll is a real dose of good news in terms of where public opinion is on an issue that obviously matters a lot to this audience, and I was intrigued by the question about China. I think while we can't offer definitive reasons for why the numbers are so high in support of both the right and the responsibility to protect innocent civilians, I think there are indications that part of what this suggests is the notion of the responsibility to protect is something that in many ways transcends national policies, that almost without regard to the positions of the various governments in that list on something like Darfur, populations across the board seem to, I think, aspire to some notion of the global common good, if you will, whereby innocent civilians who are under attack whether by their government or by other forces are owed some protection by the rest of the world, and at this point in world history I will take good news anywhere I can get it. So, that's the first point I'd like to make. I'd like to talk a little bit about one of the intriguing things here, which is the gap between what we're seeing in terms of public interest and the realities of public policy, and I think there are some distinct reasons we're seeing that gap but also some things that we can do about it. I think we've seen in this country and abroad that the notion of the responsibility to protect, again particularly with reference to Darfur, has captured the public imagination that there is great interest that seems to permeate the entire political spectrum, people of all faiths, and people of all ages. In terms of the reality of policy, I'm afraid that what we've got is something where the world, including the United States, has not acted on the responsibility to protect, and in fact what we've done is kind of left the undermanned and under funded A.U. and the nongovernmental agencies to hold the bag, if you will, while the rest of the international community contents itself with issuing statements. There are several reasons why we've got this gap, and let me try to lay those out. One is that I'm not sure that the public interest that we're seeing in this poll but also importantly that we're seeing manifested in a tremendous amount of public activism has yet translated to policymakers and politicians. I think there is still a belief that voters in particular don't put this too high on the priority list and that it's not really a make-or-break issue. Part of that is that I'm not certain they're up to date. I hope there will be a showing of this over the next 18 months and on the Hill and in other places, because I think it is very informative. But I also think it's because the advocacy ask coming from the broad community, in which I include myself and our organization, has tended to be a fairly simply one. It has been do something about Darfur, say something about Darfur. That's a relatively easy ask and one that's relatively easily satisfied. A second reason has to do with the media, which, in addition to public opinion, is a very powerful instrument of change as we all know. We did a project . the Center for American Progress . with the Genocide Intervention Network a couple of years ago called the Witness where we tracked cable and network coverage of Darfur as compared to three other life-changing issues . the runaway bride, Tom Cruise's leaping on the couch on the Oprah show, and whatever it was Michael Jackson was doing at that time. And what we found . and we're about to watch this again, and if you have candidates for what we should compare it to, we'd be happy to hear those . but what we found is that in many cases, including at pivotal times in the Darfur crisis, like when then Secretary of State Colin Powell used the term "genocide," there were 2000 minutes of coverage on these other three stories versus two minutes of coverage on Darfur. That's a really important fact here, because for policymakers and politicians, it's one thing to get the petitions and see the activism; it's another to hear the constant drum beat of media coverage demanding public action. A third reason is I'm afraid that out of the experience . in particular, Somalia . there has been a conclusion implicit, but explicit in terms of what we've done since . that we can act in these crises so long as there is no real cost and no real risk, that the damage done by the killing of those Marines in Mogadishu is one that has suggested that, again, we should intervene, we should stop mass atrocities and genocide, but we've got to do it in a way where nobody gets hurt, nobody gets killed, and it doesn't cost too much money. I understand the political blowback that occurred at the time and the very real fallout that comes when risks are in fact undertaken and damage is incurred. But I think that's another obstacle to translating this public interest. A fourth, if I'm counting correctly, is that Africa, while it has moved up the priority list is still at the bottom. Now, it's important to note here that Africa is not the only part of the world where one has seen mass atrocities or indeed genocide. In recent times, it's been the primary region of focus of Rwanda, now Darfur. And, again, I think we are seeing more attention to Africa but not yet enough. For example, a small fact in terms of diplomatic coverage . and I know this is something that Susan when she was Assistant Secretary pushed very hard on changing . we have twice as many diplomats in Europe and Eurasia as we do in Africa. I am pretty certain that if the crises, real or potential mass atrocities that we're seeing in places like Northern Uganda or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or of the very dangerous situation we're seeing in Zimbabwe were happening in Asia or the Middle East, we would probably see a bit more political attention given to them by both the Executive and Legislative branches. So, there are a number of factors that have to do with what boils down to political will. There is another factor here, which is I think capacity. Now, in my view, political will is the most important ingredient. I think we all know that when politicians and policymakers capture and act upon that political will they can do almost anything. But there are some real capacity deficits here. If you look at the President's budget request, the most recent request, for example there is no funding in that for a hybrid U.N./A.U. force for Darfur, although that is theoretically the objective of policy right now to get that force in there. There is a $600 million deficit in global peacekeeping, even though, again . and we've seen here . there is public interest in, and one would hope that would translate into public support for, spending in this critical area. Of our foreign assistance, although that budget has grown, it has not grown in the area of prevention or in making the kinds of investments that might allow us to act on the responsibility to protect by getting ahead of the curve. So, we have this deficit in political will. We also have a practical deficit in capacity. In other words, if we wanted to do absolutely the right thing in Darfur today, we don't have it in the budget; we don't have it in our human resource base of deployments; and we don't have it on our policy agenda in any meaningful way. Let me just point to three things that I think could turn this around and help translate this into action. One is going from the general to the specific, and this gets to what was just mentioned in terms of the difference between people agreeing that there should be the right or the responsibility, but translating that to the demand that there be action. The activism we've seen from the grassroots community is remarkable, and there is no single thing that has had more impact on U.S. policy and attention to Darfur by the Executive and Legislative Branches and by the media than that activism. However, the ask there is a very simple one, and the more that ask and the more advocacy can get to some of the specific and concrete actions that the United States needs to take, I think, the greater our chances of translating agreement to a demand. Second is that we don't really have any replicable models of success. You certainly can't look at Darfur today and say well, the way to do this is to issue statements, under-fund an A.U. mission that is too small and doesn't have a sufficiently robust mandate, and hope that the perpetrator will change his mind. That's not a model that is going to sustain and kind of feel confidence that we can actually do this. The challenge we have is defining that model in the abstract. I don't think we've, again, got a model in recent history that works there, but that's another thing that I think needs to be done. How can this happen, and what does success like? And the third and last thing I would say is that we need to inject this into our broader political discourse about foreign policy. It's very striking to me that the fears that I think many of us have had that the situation in Iraq would cause many to conclude that intervention period is a bad idea has not apparently . and I know you didn't ask this specifically . but has not apparently affected public opinion in the United States or elsewhere about the utility of intervention. That said, we have a very disaggregated foreign policy discourse. We talk about Iraq, about the use of force, about the strengths and weaknesses of the U.N., and then there's a separate discussion about Darfur. So, my final point would be that the more that we can integrate this kind of public opinion into a broader and arguably more potent discourse at this point on America's role in the world on our foreign policy into the future I think the greater our chances of, again, translating agreement into actual demand and action. And with that, I'll stop and turn to Susan. Thank you, very much. And Susan. Thank you, Beth. Let me begin by saying good morning, and I want to join my colleagues in thanking others on this panel. Thank you especially, Steve, for what's a very interesting and insightful, and I hope it's one that you'll be able continue to follow up and integrate into your own surveys, these questions as they pertain to African public opinion, because I think this is a very interesting set of questions to continue tracking. I also want to thank Beth for her leadership and effort to organize this event. We're all very appreciative of it, especially me since I wasn't here to be helpful. So, thank you. And also thank you to Gayle for her ever brilliant and quite insightful analysis; it's always a pleasure to be able to back on a panel with my good friend and colleague. It's interesting that Gayle spent a good bit of time examining the gap between U.S. public disposition and opinion and U.S. policy as it relates to the responsibility to protect, as well as specifically to Darfur, and noted that something that I want to underscore which I found particularly fascinating, and that is 65 percent of the American public, as validated in multiple surveys, is willing to contemplate the involvement of U.S. military forces in a peacekeeping . and in fact it would be a peace enforcement operation . in Darfur. Having served in the government in the 1990s, having seen the so-called Mogadishu effect first hand, that's a striking finding. The fact that the American public is willing to contemplate, even in the context of our overstretch in Iraq, the involvement of U.S. forces in a multilateral peacekeeping mission to save lives in Africa I think reflects at least the possibility if not the reality that we are moving past that, as Gayle noted, despite the horrific consequences of Iraq. And so I think that that is a fascinating and important consideration and finding. But what I want to talk about for a few minutes . first of all how there may be gaps not only between the perceptions of the public and the policy of the government here in the United States but also how those gaps might manifest themselves or appear to manifest themselves in other countries around the world, and I will draw on some findings that we at Brookings gleaned from a project that I participated in on force and legitimacy, which I'll explain in just a second, and then I'll conclude with some comments about U.S. policy and the direction I believe it ought to go in and the implications of these survey findings for the potential to shift U.S. policy. Between 2004 and 2006, my colleagues and I here at Brookings, led by Ivo Daalder and Jim Steinberg and subsequently Carlos Pascual, engaged in a series of dialogues under the rubric of a project called Force and Legitimacy. We sat down for several days with former government officials, academics, elites from a wide cross section of countries to discuss the question of when is it legitimate and appropriate to use force in international affairs. So, we looked at counterterrorism; we looked at the question of preemption; we looked at nonproliferation; and we looked in depth at the question of humanitarian intervention and we had dialogues with European counterparts, with counterparts from the Middle East, Israel, and Egypt in particular, with Africans, with Mexicans, with the Chinese and with India and Pakistan. Now, it's interesting . as I said, these were dialogues, but what we found is that what we heard from government . former government representatives, from academics about their perceptions of the responsibility to protect and in particular whether it would be appropriate for the international community to engage or intervene in a place like Darfur tended to closely track the approach and the policies of the governments from which they came. But what the survey shows, which is very interesting, is that in many instances in the countries that we were having these dialogues with there is also a significant gap between what is the elite perception and the government perception on the one hand and the public perception on the other, and it's a gap that I might . I would not have anticipated prior to the findings that Steve has shared with us. As he noted but I think is worth reiterating, it's remarkable that, broadly speaking across the globe, the international norm of the responsibility to protect is very well ingrained considering how brand new it is . really, not even two years old as a matter of international policy or law. But let me just comment specifically on a few cases. We had a dialogue with Chinese counterparts which was quite interesting, and I'm going to have to oversimplify and try to synthesize the findings, but in the case of China, there was an interesting acceptance in principle of the notion of the responsibility to protect. But when it came down to any specific case, most notably Darfur . but, frankly, any case . that agreement in principle eroded, evaporated into no, we can't possibly agree to that. And so to find the Chinese public having a greater willingness to embrace a responsibility, even in the right, and that number being far larger than any of us might have anticipated, is remarkable indeed. And while given the nature of the system of governance in China, it may not soon translate into changed policy. I think it bodes well for the future, and it certainly . if not for Darfur in the short term . and it certainly indicates that the Chinese public is, even if as relatively uninformed as the American public about Darfur, really plugging in, in an interesting way, to the broader issues and debates that animate the international community. In Europe, the elites, those that we engaged with, were far more forward leaning than in other parts of the world, with the exception of Africa. They were more or less with the American participants in feeling that there is a right . there is a responsibility, and in the case of Darfur more needs to be done, and that's reflected in the European data that we've seen, so they're not particular gap. Mexico, a very interesting gap. Our Mexican interlocutors really, to a substantial extent, reflected the traditional Mexican government angina about any external intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. They are hard core sovereignty is sacrosanct. There's a good historical reason for that, obviously, and it permeates much of Latin America. But at the elite level, there was very little acceptance of the responsibility to protect, particularly applied in any real world cases, but if you look at what the Mexican public said in this survey, 73 percent at least acknowledged the right of the international community or the Security Council to authorize that objection. Israel, as you might expect, a fair degree of coincidence between elite opinion and public opinion. We did not have, in your survey, Steve, an opportunity to look at what Egyptian opinion was, but we had the Palestinian territories, which may or may not be an interesting proxy, but our Egyptian interlocutors also were very, very wary of any effective application of responsibility to protect, and yet we see it next door in the Palestinian territories 78 percent acknowledging a right, 64 percent a responsibility. The other interesting gap was with India. India has a long and distinguished tradition of participation in international peacekeeping, as you well know, but also as a staunch leader of the nonaligned movement for many years a sort of retro adherence to the sovereignty as remaining sacrosanct, and we heard that from our Indian interlocutors, indeed also from our Pakistani interlocutors in the context of these dialogs, and I found it interesting that while in India there wasn't the same robust findings, still 63 percent acknowledged the right and 51 percent a responsibility and 59 percent willing to contemplate action specifically in Darfur. So, even there the public seems to be somewhat ahead of elite and perhaps government opinion. Africa . and I look forward to subsequent surveys where we get more data . the African elites and African government represents with whom we spoke were very forward leaning on the responsibility to protect, very forward leaning on humanitarian intervention. The A.U. charter . which, you know, no longer places sovereignty as inviolable and contemplates the need for these kinds of interventions . is really very deeply internalized with our interlocutors, and it's interesting that public opinion seems, with the data we have, to track that but perhaps not as strongly as we heard at the elite level. And South Africa remains to me a fascinating outlier about which I really do hope we can learn more through additional surveys, not only when it comes to the responsibility to protect in this set of issues but a whole range of human rights issues that have come to the fore as South Africa has served on the Security Council and acted in the Human Rights Commission and elsewhere. So, overall, in the U.S. and around the world there is far greater acceptance of the responsibility to protect the role of the Security Council, and even specifically for action in Darfur where people are aware of Darfur, than the policies of either the U.S. government or the other Security Council governments would suggest. U.S. policy I'd like to turn to now as I close and comment with something that ought to be obvious, but it's remarkable to me how anemic and simultaneously constipated U.S. policy is on the question of Darfur, and it's grossly out of step with U.S. public opinion and in fact with the bipartisan view of Congress. If you step back and look at how the United States government has dealt with the issue of the genocide in Darfur, it's really not a pretty picture. The genocide has been going on for over four years. As Beth said at the outset, depending on whose numbers you believe, as many as 450,000 have died; 2-1/2 million displaced or made refugees. The situation is spilling over into the neighboring countries and seriously destabilizing Chad in the Central African Republic. In just the last week we've had Janjaweed raids into Chad; we've five African Union peacekeepers killed, and humanitarian access, despite numerous agreements to improve it, remains of serious concern. And, yet, the U.S. government approach in policy has been, over the last three years . since in the first year we didn't pay any attention to the genocide . one that I have characterized as a pattern of bluster and retreat. They scream loud, they call it genocide, they remonstrate, they bang the table and say this has to stop; they threaten action and do nothing. Bluster and retreat. The most striking example of that was back in November on this very podium. The President's special envoy, Andrew Natsios, came and said very plainly that if by January 1st, 2007, the Sudanese government has not stopped the killing of innocent civilians and accepted unequivocally the deployment of a U.N. African Union hybrid force, then the United States would implement Plan B, Plan B being an unknown or uncertain package of economic sanctions, some of which if implemented might have some significant impact. Well, you all can look at your watches and see that today is April 5th, 2007, four months later. Nothing. No action. Statements by the administration actually walking back this threat. Andrew Natsios quoted as speaking in various forms no longer describing the situation in Darfur as genocide. The Secretary of State in testimony effectively ruled out any more robust U.S. action. This is not the approach of a government that is serious about stopping a genocide, and yet in effect what we have done . we, the United States; we, the international community . is to allow the perpetrators of genocide, the government of Sudan, to dictate the terms of the international community's response to that genocide, to, in effect, say no, you can't come in to stop it with this kind of force; no, you can't come in with this composition; you can't, you can't, you can't. And instead of being a national community saying "excuse me, but you all are perpetrating the genocide, we're here to stop it, we're not negotiating with you on the means and the methods of stopping it," we've done just the opposite. We've negotiated . for months . going on to a year.It's been almost a year since the African Union said to the international community, indeed to the United Nations that while we have done . we have made a significant contribution to the security situation in Darfur and the A.U. deserves huge credit for being the only forces on the planet willing to take bullets to save people in Darfur, they said that look, this mission needs to be larger; it needs a more assured funding stream; it's needs greater logistical support; we want to transition to a U.N. force, will subsume our forces under that force and move ahead. It's been almost a year and nothing's happened. Literally, nothing's happened. We have walked away from a chapter 7 U.N. Security Council resolution, which we championed and backed that authorized that U.N. force of 22,000 and negotiated again with the perpetrators of genocide on a so-called hybrid force, the U.N. African Union force, which would be smaller, would have a mandate derived from the African Union in which, again, the perpetrators of genocide have a say in the outcome. It would be a force that would have all the complexities and weaknesses that we saw in the Balkans where you have the whole dual key phenomenon and challenge, and it would be predominantly African without the external support from NATO and other countries that might be needed to increase its strength and viability. And, very importantly, there aren't the African forces there; there isn't the access capacity to get from the 7,000 level to the 20 or 22,000 level. So, we basically created a fiction, this hybrid and, even so, a far lesser force, the Sudanese government continues to thwart and reject, and we do nothing. So, this is indeed a disgrace not only for the United States, for the entire international community. Moving ahead, I believe strongly that we should implement this Plan B. Should have been done months ago. It may or may not be effective, depending on what they put in the package, and it will be less effective to the extent that they've leaked elements of it previously. We ought to move beyond this hybrid. We've given the Sudanese too much time to dither with that. They rejected it. Six months later, almost. We ought to say we're no longer negotiating on the composition of the force; we will deploy . we the international community . a force that we believe to be effective on our own terms. We need to accept the diplomacy in negotiating the terms of the entry of such a force has run its course. It has failed. And every day that we continue to bank on diplomacy, we're allowing more and more to die and the region to become further inflamed. I have argued in other contexts, and I continue to believe that it's past time that the international community and the United States give the Sudanese government a very short duration ultimatum in which to accept an effective and robust international force with a mandate to protect civilians or face the threat of the use of military force. I think that force can and should come in the form of air strikes targeted at the aircraft, the airfields, and the other assets that have been involved in the genocide itself. We can do that with the assets we have. It's exactly what we did in Kosovo in a far lesser humanitarian crisis, and it's striking to me that we aren't even discussing or contemplating that in the context or Darfur. The fact is we have a choice. We can play this game of bluster and retreat and negotiate and do-si-do in perpetuity, or we can stop the killing and try to prevent the spillover from magnifying. The Bush administration . despite the fact that it is in a weakened political and practical state domestically and internationally . on this issue still holds a great many cards, and it has a choice whether to play those cards or to fold and let history judge it accordingly. Steve, what your findings show is if the administration steps up to the plate four years later and demonstrates the guts to play its cards, it can count on significant not only congressional support on a bipartisan basis but significant public support or at least be in a position to cultivate that support to fruition. Thank you.