The Conflict is an internal inter-tribal conflict – arming the Darfur tribes would be better  The conflict in Darfur has been largely inter-tribal, and even the Sudanese government, lacking the full resources needed to suppress the opposition itself, has resorted to playing on these differences.  Any Western effort to intervene would have been seen as intervening on one side by virtually all of the locals. The Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit would have seen the West as intervening to support them – the Abbala and the Janjaweed, as intervening to attack them.  In this context intervention would be seen as a pretext to reverse the sides in the war rather than to end it.  If our sole goal was to push for a settlement, it would have made far more sense to attempt to pay off the Janjaweed to turn on the government forces, and then to arm the Darfur tribes. It would have been cheaper, and prevented the Sudanese from playing the sides off against each other.