Upon receiving his college diploma on April 26, Peter Kuch felt many of the emotions new college graduates feel: joy, pride and hope for a bright future. But for Mr. Kuch, who graduated from Bryant & Stratton College in Syracuse, N.Y., the day meant much more. It was, in his words, “truly historic.”

That’s because Mr. Kuch’s graduation marked 25 years — to the day — since a day that foreshadowed a future devoid of all joy, pride and hope for him, his family and countrymen.

Peter Kuch (pronounced “Kush”) is one of about 4,000 Sudanese “lost boys” living in the United States. “Lost boys” is the name given by aid organizations to the more than 27,000 boys displaced or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War.

The first inklings of that war began in 1983, when Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry imposed Shariah law throughout Sudan, including upon the mostly Christian and Animist citizens of its oil-producing south.

On April 26, 1983, to ensure a wider application of Shariah, Mr. Nimeiry declared a “state of emergency,” under which most constitutionally guaranteed rights were suspended in the south.

The declaration prompted formation of southern Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and triggered a two-decade civil war during which roughly 2.2 million civilians died, one of the highest civilian death tolls of any war since World War II.

It took a couple years for government militias to set their sights on Mr. Kuch’s hometown of Bor, on the east bank of the Nile River. “I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire,” Mr. Kuch recalled in a recent interview. “My family decided to run in different directions, hoping that they would be safe.”

Many of Peter’s friends and family members were killed, and many who survived fled, leaving Mr. Kuch, at age of 7 or 8 (Peter, like many “lost boys,” does not know his exact age), to begin the 600-mile trek (roughly the distance between Boston and Richmond) to Ethiopia in hopes of reaching a refugee camp. The conditions were jaw-dropping.

“Over the three weeks to a month that it took us to get there, I remember a lot of the other children dying. Since we weren’t carrying any food with us, a lot of the children died from hunger and thirst. Some of us ate wild leaves, though we did not know whether they were poisonous, and some of us drank our own urine if we were lucky to happen to produce any urine because we all were dehydrated. Some of us were attacked by wild animals, and some of the children drowned trying to swim across rivers. Several children just gave up and left the group, and others caught epidemic diseases.”

Thousands of children died en route to Ethiopia. Those who survived, including Mr. Kuch, spent four years at a squalid refugee camp before another civil war forced them to run for their lives. Mr. Kuch then began another nearly yearlong odyssey to Kenya.

Dodging bombs and gunfire from Khartoum’s Islamist armies, Mr. Kuch was one of fewer than half of the “lost boys” who made it to refugee camps in Kenya, where he spent the next 10 years on the edge of life, yearning for a chance to learn, to eat and to live in freedom.

That chance came in 2003 when, following a lengthy interview process, Mr. Kuch was selected by the U.S. government as one of 4,000 “lost boys” to move to America. He settled in Syracuse, N.Y., where he quickly secured a job and later enrolled in Byrant & Stratton College’s Human Resources program.

Since coming to America, Peter has devoted much of his free time to informing Americans about the plight of his people. He has testified before Congress and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and speaks at high schools, colleges and churches, not only about the millions still displaced by Sudan’s civil war but also about the ongoing genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

According to Mr. Kuch, education is the next war in Sudan. “When the Arabs were in power, people were not allowed to get an education unless they became Muslim and took Muslim names. … I would love to go back, it’s one of the reasons I want to get my education.”

Through it all, Mr. Kuch’s Christian faith has remained strong. “My faith in God plays a great role in my life and my ability to persevere in everything I have gone through. I had a strong faith in God that one day He will bring us out like He did to the people of Israel. My faith kept me going.”

Peter’s faith also informed his recent decision to join the U.S. Army in order, in his words, “to defend this great nation with all my heart.”

It might seem paradoxical for one of the “lost boys,” who experts say are the most badly war-traumatized children ever examined, to aspire to become a soldier. Mr. Kuch says, “when I speak about joining the military I have people asking why I want to go, as I have been through a lot already. My answer to them is always that I love this country and I want to do my part in this critical time of the war.”

Mr. Kuch also recognizes Islamic extremism, the enemy responsible for the slaughter of his people and his separation from his family, as the same enemy that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001, and the same enemy America is fighting today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Mr. Kuch prepares to leave for basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C., on June 13, he looks forward to serving his country in order, as he says, “to give back to a country that has given me so much.” And to help others experience the feelings of joy, pride and hope for a bright future only freedom can bring.

When will peace come to Darfur? After four years of genocide (the killings started in February 2003), that question has lost all but its rhetorical significance.

A glimmer of hope was provided recently when New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson helped negotiate a 60-day cease-fire with Sudan’s murderous president, Omar al-Bashir. Bashir’s promise proved empty, however, when, just days after the agreement was signed, government planes initiated a fresh aerial bombing campaign targeting rebel groups and innocent civilians in Northern Darfur.

A Consistent Pattern

A consistent pattern has emerged in the world’s negotiations with the Sudanese government over Darfur. The West (i.e., the United Nations, with backing from the United States) pressures Sudan to reign in its genocidal militias and allow peacekeepers to enter Darfur, while threatening economic and military repercussions for noncompliance. Bashir dawdles, fearing prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and spouting derisory theories about “Jewish conspiracies” and Western plots to re-colonize his oil-rich nation.

Then, with a deadline looming, the Sudanese government relents and promises to behave. Hope is restored. But Khartoum promptly ignores its promises, instead ramping up attacks against rebel groups and innocent civilians. In response, the West feigns outrage, using stark language to describe deteriorating conditions and the heavy price of continued obstinacy. In the end, however, without the will to follow through on its threats, the West gives in, and the cycle begins anew.

The cycle of impunity in Darfur began nearly three years ago, when the U.N. Security Council adopted resolution 1556, giving Khartoum 30 days to disarm or face economic and military sanctions. The deadline passed quietly.

Last May, following months of intense negotiations, Sudan signed the Darfur Peace Agreement authorizing the installation of U.N. peacekeepers. A Sudanese government spokesman said: “The United Nations is the only party that could help us, really, in implementing this peace agreement.” Days later, Bashir reneged, announcing that the installation of U.N. troops “shall never take place.”

Five months ago the U.N. Security Council threatened to impose sanctions on Sudan if it persisted in barring peacekeepers from Darfur, a threat punctuated by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who declared that Sudan must “immediately and unconditionally” accept a U.N. force or face “a choice between cooperation and confrontation.” Again, the deadline came and went.

A Credible Threat

In game theory economics a “non-credible threat” is a term used to describe a threat by a player in a sequential game that will not be carried out but is nonetheless made in the hope that it will be believed and, therefore, that the threatened undesirable action will not need to be carried out.

The United Nations has spent four years making non-credible threats against Sudan. Unfortunately for the U.N. — and most especially for the people of Darfur — the Sudanese government has taken none of these threats seriously.

This reality is not lost on United Nations Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown. Speaking candidly at a recent Brookings Institute event, Brown admitted that in Darfur: “…there is a little bit of bluff playing, in that we’re saying to President Bashir of Sudan, ‘give us consent for deployment or else.’ And there’s a lot of questions about what plausibly the ‘or else’ is. And President Bashir looks at us and he thinks he’s seen us blink, and that makes it hugely difficult to credibly address this issue of winning his consent to our deployment.”

President Bush, no stranger to feckless U.N. Security Council resolutions, has similarly stated that, “The credibility of the U.N. is at stake” in Darfur.

Breaking the Cycle

So, what can be done to break the cycle of impunity in Darfur? France — previously mum on Darfur because of its financial entanglements with the Bashir regime — has suggested entering Darfur without the United Nations. Susan Rice, an Africa specialist in the Clinton Administration, has urged the United States — with backing from European partners and, ideally, African governments — to employ a bombing campaign of strategic targets, such as airfields and command and control installations.

Max Boot, writing in the Jewish World Review, called for a private army (mercenaries) to quell the violence. Even the normally dovish New York Times has fantasized about NATO pushing its way in (as it did, successfully, in Kosovo) without permission from Khartoum. A NATO force is the most viable option, given that it already provides logistical help — including airlift support and officer training — to a beleaguered African Union force in Darfur, and because the NATO Response Force would be capable of deploying thousands of troops is less than 30 days.

Back at the United Nations, meanwhile, newly-elected Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has pledged to make Darfur “a priority” during his tenure. Yet Ban — echoing the ambivalence of his predecessor, Kofi Annan — also argues that he sees “no military solution” to the conflict.

In the midst of such equivocation, only one thing seems clear: Unless the cycle of impunity is broken, the fifth year of genocide in Darfur will not be the last.

Jan Egeland, head of United Nations humanitarian operations, describes the region as “going from real bad to catastrophic” and “headed toward total chaos.”

The top U.N. aid official says the level of violence faced by humanitarian workers is “unprecedented.”

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan refers to the situation as “one of the worst nightmares in recent history,” “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” and “little short of hell on earth.”

No, they’re not talking about the crisis in the Middle East, where the United Nations has just announced plans to dispatch a 15,000-strong international force to enforce a cease-fire in southern Lebanon. These are the latest reactions of U. N. officials to the unfolding genocide in Darfur.

Sadly, the alacrity with which the U.N. has taken action in the Middle East stands in stark contrast to its dithering in Darfur, where for three years the world body has used strong language to talk about a solution but done very little of substance to quell the violence.

In May, the U.N. did help broker the Darfur Peace Treaty, requiring the Sudanese government to disarm its genocidal militias and allow U.N. troops in to restore peace. Unfortunately, not only has the Darfur treaty deal failed to bring peace, it has actually triggered an increase in violence against civilians.

Only days after the agreement was signed, Sudanese Dictator Omar al-Bashir reversed course, declaring that the installation of U.N. peacekeepers, “shall never take place.” He also promised to make Darfur “a graveyard” for any outside force, further emboldening the government militias that roam the countryside, seizing every opportunity to rape, pillage and kill, their attacks becoming more frequent and more deadly each day. After a July exploratory mission to Darfur, U.N. Head of Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Gueheno warned that the risk of “major violence…after the rainy season is quite real, very real.” The violence over the last 100 days has displaced more than 50,000 Dafuris, forcing many to seek refuge in Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor, where hundreds of thousands are already seeking refuge.

What’s more, the Sudan Liberation Movement, the only rebel faction to sign the peace agreement, now stands accused of carrying out bloody raids in northern Darfur in an attempt to punish those rebel groups that did not sign on. These attacks include rape and murder of innocent civilians, the familiar weapons of Bashir’s militias.

Adding to the misery, international aid agencies report a marked increase in the number and severity of attacks on international aid workers providing water, food and medical care to the 3.5 million refugees who depend on them to survive. A new U.N. report states that more aid workers in Darfur have been killed in the past month than in the previous three years combined. Citing security concerns, aid workers have effectively ended relief efforts in many areas. Oxfam recently announced closure of two of its six offices in the north of Darfur because of the abduction of a Sudanese staff member. Meanwhile, insufficient funding has forced the World Food Program to cut food rations in half for the six million it feeds.

Spiraling violence, fewer aid workers, and the onset of the raining season have also caused a rise in malnutrition and the spread of water-borne disease, and there is an outbreak of cholera on the verge of exploding in a number of refugee camps.

While the situation on the ground deteriorates, the United Nations is sending mixed signals. On the one hand, the U.N. continues to reiterate its plan to install a large and highly mobile peacekeeping force in Darfur “as soon as possible.” On the other hand, it recently pushed back until January 2007 its estimated time of arrival in Darfur.

The U.N. justifies its inaction by periodically calling for increases in funding for the African Union force already on the ground in Darfur. But the African Union cannot bring peace. Seven thousand troops currently patrol Darfur, a sprawling piece of desert the size of Texas. This means each soldier patrols an area roughly the size of Manhattan. Worse, when A.U. soldiers witness an attack, they do not have a mandate to intervene, just to observe and report. Not surprisingly Mr. Bashir has welcomed extending the A.U.’s presence in Darfur, even offering to pay for it. Meanwhile, the A.U. itself realizes how outmatched it is and, facing bankruptcy, has appealed to the U.N. to deploy its troops “as soon as possible.”

Despite its lack of success, the May peace agreement is the last, best hope for peace in Darfur. Too much time and too many resources were expended (including considerable efforts by the United States) to see it come to nothing. But, as Kofi Annan and much of the international community readily admit, the window of opportunity provided by the agreement is quickly closing. A minimum of 20,000 troops is needed in Darfur, and these troops need robust rules of engagement and authorization to use force against the government’s marauding militias and restore peace.

At a time when much of the world’s diplomatic efforts are focused on the crisis in the Middle East, there is a real danger of forgetting that genocide persists in Darfur. Nicholas Kristof recently reported that the war in Lebanon has received more airtime in the media each week than the Darfur crisis has gotten in total since it commenced in 2003. There are also fewer calls for U.N. intervention in Darfur. According to LexisNexis, the media have mentioned “U.N. peacekeepers” and “Lebanon” in the same news article over one thousand times in the last month, while “Darfur” and “U.N. peacekeepers” have been mentioned together just 144 times.

It took the U.N. just four weeks to negotiate a “cessation of hostilities” in Lebanon. As the genocide in Darfur enters its fourth year, it’s past time the world body enforced the peace agreement that would end the bloodshed in the most hostile place on earth.

The Bush Administration’s recent willingness to address ethnic cleansing in Sudan more actively suggests that, in the face of genocide, strategic and humanitarian interests never clash.

It was only a few weeks ago that those of us who have been closely following the genocide in Darfur were lamenting the tense and evasive nature of the Bush Administration’s policy there. Despite having done more than any other government to respond to this human rights disaster — including providing the bulk of humanitarian aid, continuously pressing for tough UN action against the government and unabashedly using the word “genocide” to describe conditions there — the administration’s reaction had at times been fragmented and equivocal.

Since Sudan is considered a key ally in the war on terror (Khartoum’s agents have reportedly penetrated terrorist networks not otherwise accessible to the U.S.), the administration often handled the Sudanese government with kid gloves. Last April the White House worked behind the scenes to ensure the demise of the Darfur Accountability Act in Congress, which would have stepped up pressure on the regime to cease the killing. The administration even allowed the CIA to fly Sudan’s intelligence chief, Salah Abdallah Gosh, an architect of the Darfur atrocity, to Washington for consultation.

The mixed signals sent by the United States — sometimes condemning and at others times seemingly commending the regime — gave the impression that the Bush Administration was not serious about securing peace in a region suffering the effects of the government-sponsored slaughter of 400,000 people, in addition to the rape, disfigurement and dislocation of another 2.5 million people.

Recent weeks, however, have brought a remarkable shift in America’s course of action toward the place United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recently labeled “little short of hell on earth.” First came the president’s nod to Darfur in his State of the Union address, when he said, “We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of…a refugee fleeing genocide…” Next came Bush’s pledge that the United States would play a pivotal role in helping swap an under-manned, under-funded, and out-gunned African Union force of 7,000 for up to 20,000 well-trained and properly mandated United Nations soldiers. (A move the UN Security Council approved at the prodding of U.S. Ambassador John Bolton.)

Most recently, Bush sent an emergency supplemental funding proposal to Congress, including a request for $514 million for peacekeeping and humanitarian programs in Darfur.

SO, TO WHAT CAN WE ATTRIBUTE the Bush Administration’s newfound commitment to Darfur? Here are two possible explanations.

First, by all accounts the situation in Darfur is spiraling out of control. After over a year of savagery, conditions seemed to improve last summer when Khartoum promised to rein in its death squads. But the promises proved hollow and the onset of the dry season last fall revived the government militia’s thirst for spreading terror throughout the region. Jan Pronk, the UN representative in Sudan, recently reported, “At least once a month groups of 500 to 1000 militia on camel and horseback attack villages, killing dozens of people.”

In addition, more than one million Darfurians continue to languish in internally displaced persons camps, while several hundred thousand have sought safety across the border in Chad, where the militias have started launching cross-border raids on villages on an almost daily basis.

International aid agencies have reported that entire sections of the population are cut-off from relief, and aid workers have faced increased threats, harassment and beatings. Last month, twenty-one World Food Program convoys were attacked, four times as many as last summer. The increased violence has caused many humanitarian organizations to scale back operations due to security concerns. The UN predicts that if the situation continues to deteriorate at its current rate, the death toll could rise to 100,000 a month. What has become clear is that far from improving, the conditions in Darfur are actually deteriorating.

A second and more compelling explanation for the administration’s interest in Darfur has less to do with what’s changing on the ground and more to do with what hasn’t changed about the philosophical groundwork of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy.

Foundational to this administration’s foreign policy vision is the protection and promotion of the dignity and natural rights of all men. Indeed, Bush identified human rights violations as a chief reason for intervention in Iraq, and he regularly refers to “ending tyranny in our world” as his ultimate foreign policy objective.

Accordingly, failure to act in Darfur manifestly undermines the moral credibility of every foreign mission the United States undertakes. Conversely, intervention in Darfur, certainly the most egregious humanitarian crisis in the world today, becomes proof positive that Mr. Bush is sincere when he talks about his dedication to the cause of human dignity and compassionate conduct abroad.

SO, WHILE SOME SUGGEST AMERICAN engagement in Iraq precludes intervention in Darfur, more astute observers recognize Iraq as reinforcing the imperative for U.S. involvement there.

Of course, America’s work is just starting, and there is much more that can be done.

A welcome start would be for the administration to insist that the UN enforce an arms embargo against Sudan and punish scofflaws (such as China and Russia) that continue to supply Khartoum with the money and weapons that fuel terror. The U.S. should demand the release of an unpublished UN study listing those countries that ship weapons to the Sudanese government. Mr. Bush should publicly denounce the Arab League’s decision to hold its annual summit in Khartoum, scheduled for the end of March. To allow the summit to take place would not only encourage the Sudanese government to continue the genocide against its people but would be an economic reward for a country guilty of the worst human rights abuses.

Most important, President Bush should continue to call on NATO members to provide equipment, training, transport and soldiers to the peacekeeping in Darfur until enough UN troops are available for deployment, which will take at least six months and as long as a year.

The conventional wisdom used to be that the White House’s reluctance to engage Darfur more actively derived from a foreign policy calculus that placed strategic military interests over humanitarian ones. But, Mr. Bush’s quiet metamorphosis on Sudan demonstrates that in the face of genocide the best strategy is also the most compassionate.