With financial and military backing from China, Sudan could threaten bordering democracies, as well as oil tankers and other Red Sea freight. For the south Sudanese it would not mark the end of sacrifice, but the end of sacrifice with purpose. For their good and ours, the United States should help. Second, a new U.S. policy should strive to neutralize the Bashir government's ability to wage war. Atrocities by government forces are well documented, and yet Khartoum continues to prosecute war and increase its ability to do so.
Oil is the reason.
A pipeline from south-central Sudan came on line in 1998. Within two years military expenditures by the government more than doubled. The UN World Food Program predicts that 200,000 Sudanese will die of starvation and malnutrition this year. Clearly the government, at the expense of its citizens, is building up its war machine. For the first time in the war it has the revenue to support it.