The pro-government Arab militias continue to raid non-Arab villages. The government refuses to actually disband these militias and will not allow the African Union to send 3,000 peacekeepers into Darfur to do it. The US is trying to get the UN to approve sanctions against Sudan, especially against Sudan's million dollar a day oil sales. But China, which can veto the effort, is a major investor in Sudan's young oil industry. Russia, which also has a veto, is a major supplier of weapons, and other goods, to the Sudan government.

In other words, nothing has changed. Sudan is comparing itself to Iraq, which is more accurate than the Sudanese leadership intended. Saddam's Iraq slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who did not belong to the same tribes as the ruling Baath Party. Same situation in Sudan. The ruling Arab tribes are out to expel or kill the non-Arab tribes. But the Sudanese leadership understands how the Arab media has painted Iraq as not the expulsion of a mass murderer, but the invasion of an independent Arab country by infidels (non-Moslems.) The Sudanese government spokesmen are following the same line, downplaying the atrocities in Darfur, and playing up the threat of invasion. The trouble is, the world would rather talk than act. The American invasion of Iraq offended many of the talkers, exposing their lack of will to actually stop murder and tyranny. American hasn't got the troops available to go into Darfur, and no one else has guts to do it.