NEAL CONAN, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

It's now more than three years since the escalation of the conflict in Darfur, which the United Nations describes as the world's greatest humanitarian crisis. Darfur is a remote area in the western part of Sudan. The government argues that rebel groups started a conflict which it vows to finish. Counter- insurgency tactics include aerial attacks and raids by government-backed militias, known as the Janjaweed.

Hundred of thousands of civilians have been killed, millions more displaced in a campaign the United States government calls genocide. Earlier this year, the Sudanese government and one of the main rebel groups signed a peace agreement, but the situation has gotten worse. A small force from the African Union has been unable to contain the violence, and the Sudanese government will not allow the United Nations' peacekeepers into the country.

Yesterday, the Sudanese government expelled U.N. envoy in Khartoum Jan Pronk after he wrote on her personal Web site that Sudan's army had suffered defeats in Darfur and that army moral was low.

A campaign is underway to demand that the U.N. and the U.S. take action before it's too late, that there's a moral obligation to prevent more deaths. Critics wonder whether such an intervention is practical and whether it might night cause more harm than good.

Later in the program, food safety and the outbreak of E. coli contamination is on the Opinion Page this week.

But first, what should we do about Darfur? Is it time to get tough with the Sudanese government, or should the international community continue to negotiate? Our number here in Washington is 800-989-8255, 800-989-TALK. The e- mail address is talk@npr.org.

We begin with Susan Rice, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. She served as assistant secretary of state for African Affairs in the Clinton administration, and she joins us from the studio at Brookings.

Nice to have you on the program.

Dr. SUSAN RICE (Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Program, Brookings Institution; Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs): Good to be with you, Neal

CONAN: And I wondered, does Jan Pronk's expulsion yesterday prove to you that there's nothing left to negotiate with Sudan at this point?

Dr. RICE: Well, I think that that is sort of the last and latest straw in a series of steps that the government of Sudan has taken that indicate that it's bent on a military solution and continuation of the genocide that it started three years ago. The most obvious manifestation of this, however, was the fact that back in May, when the United States and the African Union negotiated the Darfur Peace Agreement, it did so on the understanding that the government of Sudan would allow the United Nations to deploy a robust 22,000-person U.N. force.

And since that time, the government has consistently refused to allow that force to deploy, and in the meantime has launched a second wave of genocide, a massive new offensive in the Darfur region which is causing many, many more rapes and deaths. It doesn't want a U.N. force in there so that it can continue to carry out the killings with relative impunity. That is the strongest indication that the government is really not willing to keep its word under peace agreements, that negotiations have limited utility in the immediate and pressing task of stopping the killing of innocent civilians.

CONAN: Well, to be fair, the United Nations Security Council resolution that called for that force in Sudan in Darfur have said Sudan needed to accept it, and Sudan has declined to accept it.

Dr. RICE: Well, no it - actually, it invited the acceptance of the government of Sudan. It didn't require it. It was a Chapter VII Security Council Resolution, which means that it has the weight of international law and that consent is not required. Obviously, it would be far better and certainly far preferable if the Sudanese government did what it indicated it would do, which is accept the deployment of the U.N. force, as it has accepted a U.N. force in the south of the country to implement a separate peace agreement.

But unfortunately, that is not the case. And now it is incumbent upon the international community, the United States, and African countries, and indeed all the members of the Security Council to consider how that resolution can be enforced if need be.

CONAN: You've called on the Security Council and the United States alone, if necessary, to issue an ultimatum to Khartoum.

Dr. RICE: I have. What I've said, Neal, is that three years into the genocide, after many broken peace agreements and energetic efforts at diplomacy on the part of the African Union, the United States, the United Nations, to negotiate an end to the conflict, we have a reality. And that is that the government of Khartoum continues to want to perpetrate genocide against innocent civilians, and hasn't seen it fit to stop.

We have a choice as human beings to allow genocide to continue after many, many statements of never again, or to take the necessary steps to protect civilians. A consensual deployment of the United Nations would be the ideal. I think we have a very short window left in which negotiations to that end should play out. But if, as it seems likely, negotiations fail, then the Security Council ought to issue the Sudanese government an ultimatum - a short time limited ultimatum in which to accept the U.N. deployment consensually or face the threat and use of military force.

Ideally, that force would come with Security Council blessing. It would be limited to air strikes against Sudanese air assets and airfields, which have been involved in the killing. If need be, to a blockade of Port Sudan where most of Sudan's oil is exported. The aim of that ultimatum would not be to punish the government of Sudan, but to make it realize that, in fact, it's in its interest to allow a consensual deployment of the United Nations to protect civilians.

CONAN: Let's get another perspective on this. Eric Posner is professor of law at the University of Chicago, co-author of the book, The Limits of International Law. And he joins us today from studios at the University of Chicago.

And it's good of you to be on the program.

Professor ERIC POSNER (Law, University of Chicago; Author): Thank you. Nice to be here.

CONAN: And I know you've been listening to Susan Rice speak so far. Is intervention at this point a good idea, do you think, in Darfur?

Prof. POSNER: Well, a military intervention is probably not a good idea at the moment. Other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure might be wise, but I don't think that a military intervention would be advisable.

CONAN: Why not?

Prof. POSNER: Well, I think there are basically two problems with a military intervention. The first is that it's just not politically possible at the present time. Certainly, there wouldn't be support among the American public, which would be necessary for any American involvement in a military intervention. And American involvement would almost certainly be necessary.

In addition, I don't think China would be willing to go along with a military intervention, because China has strong economic interests in Sudan and maintaining a good relationship with the Khartoum government.

The second reason is the law of unintended consequences. I think if we've learned anything from the recent and continuing intervention in Iraq, military interventions can go terribly wrong. And they tend to be much more difficult than people imagine when they envision what it would look like.

CONAN: Mm-hmm. Well, Susan Rice, as you know, has argued in an op-ed piece published a couple of weeks ago that Iraq isn't the right example. Kosovo is the right example, and that the United States and NATO intervened in Kosovo without the approval of the Security Council because Russia, in that case, would not go along with it, so China be damned.

Prof. POSNER: Well, I mean, that's easy to say. Russia was in a much weaker position than China is now. I don't think China is the only consideration. Another precedent that we might use is Somalia, where there was a failed American attempt to help the U.N. distribute food and try to calm things down there. After the deaths of just a few American soldiers, the political support for the intervention collapsed.

I don't think Kosovo itself is a very good precedent. It turned out to work very well, but if you'll recall at the time, when the air campaign was initially announced, initially the ethnic cleansing became worse. And there was a great deal of concern that it would continue to be bad and get worse unless military intervention in the form of land forces occurred, something that President Clinton at the time said he was not willing to do.

Fortunately, it worked out at the end, but I think that the West in that case was extremely lucky. And it doesn't give one an enormous amount of confidence about an intervention in Sudan, which is of course a much larger country than Serbia was.

CONAN: Let's see if we can get some listeners involved in the conversation. If you'd like to join us, 800-989-8255, 800-989-TALK. E-mail is talk@npr.org. And we'll begin, let's see, with - let's...and all of our calls just vanished somehow.

SEAN (Caller): Hello.

CONAN: Hello. Is this Sean?

SEAN: Yes, it is.

CONAN: Hi. I'm sorry. We're having a glitch with our system, but I'm glad you made it on to the radio. Go ahead, please.

SEAN: Well, my question - and it's interesting because I have followed the, frankly, pretty terrible record the international community has had since the '80s when the first essentially genocide started in the south in Darfur, so the government has a pretty decent record and they've largely soloed the southern problem because they've cut the population substantially so they'll never have a chance at independence. Genocide does work if your stomach's strong enough.

And my question is: if you look at - just a second, dear. My little girl. If you look at the success of the no-fly zone in northern Iraq after the first Operation Desert Storm - and of course Kosovo, which was being discussed - if we would supply the air assets, no ground troops at all, and do it under umbrella, let's say, led by the South Africans - get some additional financing and yes, tell China that this is your problem if you don't like it, and essentially, stop the genocide. I mean, why stall talk about negotiating and the like and just like North Korea, they are showing that yes, they'll happily negotiate while they kill tens of thousands of people.

CONAN: Susan Rice, we'll get a response from you first, and then Eric Posner we'll probably have to wait until after the break for you to reply. But first, Susan Rice.

Dr. RICE: Thank you, Neal. I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that at this point the United States or the United Nations or anybody fight their way in on the ground. What I am suggesting is that if it becomes necessary in the short term, that we be prepared to use air strikes to persuade the Sudanese government that it's in it its interest to allow the United Nations to deploy consensually.

And in that regard, what I'm suggesting is not very different than what I understand the caller to be suggesting. The imposition of a no-fly zone would require essentially the same sort of air asset commitment that I'm suggesting. In fact, a no-fly zone may be more asset intensive and time-consuming because you have to patrol and police a no-fly zone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was a very ambitious endeavor and a dangerous endeavor in the context of northern Iraq. What we've managed to do subsequently on the ground is far more worrisome, and I suggest that we can simply persuade the Sudanese to let the U.N. in consensually and take out its critical air assets that are killing civilians in the process.

CONAN: Sean, thanks for the call. Eric Posner will reply after the break. I'm Neal Conan. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

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CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. We're discussing what to do in Darfur. The latest peace agreement there is in tatters. Sudan's government refuses to allow in U.N. peacekeepers. The question now is more negotiations or the threat of force. Our guests are Susan Rice, senior fellow in foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution. She served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration.

Also with us is Eric Posner, professor of law at the University of Chicago and author of the Limits of International Law, among other books. And, of course, you're welcome to join us. What should the international community do about Darfur? Is force the only language Khartoum will understand? 800-989-8255, 800- 989-TALK. E-mail is talk@npr.org.

Just before the break, a caller suggested the idea of a no-fly zone. Arial bombing has been a big part of the campaign against insurgents and indeed against villages involved in the killings of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur. Eric Posner, is that a practical - a good idea?

Prof. POSNER: I don't know whether it's a good idea. I think it's not as bad an idea as a military intervention using land forces. I'd just be concerned about thinking about what would happen if a no-fly zone were implemented or some other kind of air campaign were started. Again, think of Kosovo. It's perfectly possible that the Sudanese government would respond by intensifying its genocidal attacks. And then the question would be: what next?

We'd at least have to be prepared at that point to have some kind of military intervention involving land forces, and then all of the problems I mentioned earlier would have got be dealt with.

CONAN: Susan Rice, a practical question: In Kosovo, Aviana, a major NATO airbase was within fighter range of Kosovo. Aircraft carriers could be placed in the Adriatic not far from the action. Bombers could fly from Britain if necessary. All of those things don't apply to Darfur, which is a long way away from anywhere. If you're going to have a no-fly zone, you're going to have to have fighters within short-term range. Where, you know - tankers, radars - where are you going to put these things?

Dr. RICE: The logistics are difficult indeed, but the answer to your question is in Chad, where the French have substantial military bases. We'd have to probably upgrade and improve some. In the short term, we could possibly fly out of Jabudi, where we have substantial assets at the moment. We probably would have to do some in-air refueling until we could upgrade and improve the airstrips in Chad.

I don't mean to suggest that this is easy. I mean to suggest that it's necessary. We're in the midst of genocide, three years again and counting. The question is, as the Sudanese launch the second wave of genocide, are we content to sit back and find many good reasons, or even excuses, for not acting - excuse me - or - pardon me...

CONAN: That's all right.

Dr. RICE: Or are we going to do as the president said we must and stop the killing? I also think it's important to recall that, when using the Kosovo analogy, that Sudan is not Serbia. It does not have anything like a military of the strength and the power of Slobodan Milosevic's. And yes, while the distances are greater and the logistics are indeed very challenging, the opponent here is not nearly of the same caliber.

CONAN: Eric Posner, in her op-ed - and this is an issue you addressed in your writings as well - Susan Rice said the Security Council recently codified an new international norm prescribing the responsibility to protect that commits U.N. members to decisive action, including enforcement, when peaceful measures fail to halt genocide or crimes against humanity. This genocide, she argues, has lasted much too long.

Prof. POSNER: Yes. So yes, there is this idea of the responsibility to protect floating around. It's a relatively new idea, and its intention with the U.N. charter rules governing the use of force, which say that military - use of the military is not permitted except in self-defense or with Security Council authorization.

So, if you don't get Security Council authorization, it's very ambiguous whether one can launch a humanitarian intervention unilaterally. I think most international lawyers think the answer is no, and indeed I think the conventional wisdom is that the intervention in Kosovo violated international law. Whether that matters or not is a different question. Obviously, there can be strong moral and political reasons to disregard international law, but it is a concern.

CONAN: Let's get another caller on the line. This is Sam. Sam calling from Princeton, New Jersey.

SAM (Caller): Yes, thank you for taking my call. What I'd like to say is that I'm appalled by the culture of military might that the rest - and America in particular - is adopting to solve crises throughout the world. I mean, if you look in the past ten crises that have occurred in the non-Western world, it seems that America for some odd reason seems to think that bombing is the only solution. I mean, if you look at Yugoslavia, we bombed them. Look at Lebanon, we had a proxy bomb them. You look at Iraq, we're bombing them now. Look at Afghanistan, we bombed them. And now Sudan.

And it seems like we're all sitting here as (unintelligible) playing war games, thinking about strategy, how to bomb them, when to bomb them and, you know, how we get our planes and bombs on them instead of thinking of nonmilitary solutions. How long will this continue? I mean, we need more solutions like Libya, where not a single bomb was dropped and Khadafi is now an ally of the West.

CONAN: What about the idea of sanctions, which did work in the case of Libya? Susan Rice?

Dr. RICE: Well, Libya also was a function of several years of quiet diplomacy which began under the Clinton administration, as well as of sanctions. I certainly believe that military force should be an option, but an option of virtual last resort. I'm certainly not an advocate of a rapid resort or a unilateral resort to military force in most circumstances, and I believe that in many instances, including Sudan, there is value in pursuing negotiations and when necessary, sanctions. And I would certainly have supported the effort to negotiation that have lasted now three years.

In the context of Sudan, I think we ought to negotiate with North Korea and Iran as well. But there's a certain point at which one has to ask themselves if negotiations have run their course. And at what point are we prepared to continue witnessing genocide, now three years into it, in the name of never using force or in the name of allowing negotiations to continue indefinitely?

And I also think we have to make an important distinction between conflict and genocide. Conflict may underlie this genocide. There may be political and economic roots to the conflict, and I believe indeed there are. But genocide occurs when one side - in this case, the government of Sudan - makes a conscious decision to eliminate, in whole or in part, a distinct group - in this case, African tribes also sharing the Muslim religion in the west of the country.

The decision to embark upon genocide is over and above what is involved in a normal conflict. It is a deliberate decision, and only two things can reverse that decision: a choice by the government that it is no longer in its interest to pursue genocide and it stops, or is compelled to stop. Or the actual, physical protection of the civilians so they can no longer be killed.

We haven't managed through negotiations or other actions short of force to persuade the government to stop the killing. What the Security Council decided is it's necessary to protect civilians, and now we're stuck because we're not clear on how to move forward now that the government of Sudan has said, no, we're not going to allow you to protect civilians.

So we're giving the perpetrators of genocide a veto over the international community's ability to stop it. I think that's problematic.

SAM: If I may real briefly. I have a really small comment, and then I'll be off the air - is that I am more concerned about the type of negotiations which we are doing. Because if you look at the past ten conflicts, we seem to have always ended the conflict in the last resort, which is bombing and violence.

Then my concerns is maybe we need to change tactics in the negotiations, because those aren't working. And one out of the past ten conflicts have resulted in a successful negotiation.

CONAN: Sam, thanks very much. Susan Rice, I'm sure you saw the report in today's New York Times where rebel groups are now beginning to attack government forces in the western part of Sudan. Why not - if the idea is stop the genocide - why not support the rebel groups, give them the weapons they need to protect themselves?

Ms. RICE: Well, that is one option. Another option would be to decide to change the regime in Khartoum, which, in effect, would be the implication by arming the rebels. But that is a long-term proposition. It would take quite some time to supply the rebels. It would take a degree of political commitment to rebuild a country after toppling the regime, and we've seen the consequences of that in Iraq.

And I don't believe that we have come to that. I don't believe that arming one side to kill who - that is also killing civilians is the correct moral response when our motivation is to stop a genocide. And I am suggesting something that falls short of that option, which is, in effect, an implicit endorsement of regime change.

CONAN: Let's see if we can get another caller in. This is Jeff. Jeff calling us from Connecticut.

JEFF (Caller): Yes, hi. How are you?

CONAN: Very well, thanks.

JEFF: Good. My - well, I got two questions. My first one is why is the U.S. government been watching this for the last three years happening? And now, when they finally decide to get involved, the first thing they talking about is killing more civilians?

CONAN: I'm not sure that that's a fair assessment of the U.S. government's position on this. Susan Rice, I mean, the United States has been involved in this for some time.

JEFF: Well, they talking about bombing now...

CONAN: The government is not talking about bombing. It's been proposed.

Ms. RICE: Right. Let's be clear. This is, first of all, the U.S. government hasn't just woken up and decided that that this is a problem in the last few days. Secondly, Neal is right. The U.S. government isn't - at least publicly - advocating any sort of bombing.

The issue is three years into the genocide, what can the international community do to stop it? We've tried negotiations. We've tried an African union force, which hasn't succeeded. Sanctions haven't proceeded very far in the Security Council. And the killing continues. A new wave is underway.

The question is are we content to let that happen and see hundreds of thousands more killed before we decide to do anything or perhaps not do anything at all?

CONAN: Jeff, you had another question?

JEFF: Yeah. Well, why we haven't been serious about it? Is it because the U.S. don't have any economy, interest in the Sudan? Because the Sudan's selling the oil to China? Is that why we didn't get involved right away? If no economy, you know what I mean?

CONAN: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's asking is the United States has little economic interest in Sudan...

JEFF: Right. Why we didn't rush to the, you know, to see what's going on?

CONAN: Eric Posner, do you think that that's played any part in this?

Prof. POSNER: The U.S. has some important interest in Sudan, mainly in counterterrorism activities. It's tried to get cooperation from Sudan. It doesn't have, as far as I know, as much as an economic interest in the Sudanese economy as it does in other countries. But I'm not sure that's been playing an important role in the government's handling of this crisis.

CONAN: Jeff, thanks very much for the phone call. We appreciate it.

JEFF: Thank you.

CONAN: We're talking with Eric Posner at the University of Chicago, and with Susan Rice who's now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. 800-989- 2855 if you'd like to join us. E-mail: talk@npr.org. And this is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

And let's talk with Bridget. Bridget's calling us from Louisiana, from New Orleans. Bridget, you there?

BRIDGET (Caller): Yes, sir. Hi, I'm curious to know what the speakers have to think about the divestment movement that's been taking place in the U.S. in the last year and a half.

CONAN: Divestment in terms of divestment in any corporations that don't have interest in Sudan, do you mean?

BRIDGET: Yes.

CONAN: Okay.

BRIDGET: And that's been taking place throughout state legislature and also throughout universities.

CONAN: Mm-hmm. And, Susan Rice, this was a tactic certainly used to apply pressure in other cases - South Africa.

Ms. RICE: Absolutely. I think it's a very worthy movement and effort. I think unfortunately, with time so short, a second wave of genocide underway, the divestment campaigns will not be the point of pressure that will yield change in a timely fashion. But I still think that they're worthwhile. They're a valid expression of popular opinion, particularly the grassroot student movement that has been so active around Darfur, as well as the evangelical community.

We have a number of reasons to be concerned about the behavior of the government of Sudan. This is one. It's failure to implement the North-South Peace Agreement is another. There's a third conflict ongoing in the east, and it's not entirely clear that Sudan has severed all of its ties to terrorist elements.

So I think the divestment campaign has merit, but I don't think we can count on it to yield results on Darfur in the short term.

CONAN: Thank you, Bridget. Let's talk now with Richard. Richard in Bowie, Maryland.

RICHARD (Caller): Yes. Thank you for taking my call. I had a question for Ms. Rice. I wanted to know - she points to the use of air strikes to try and show the government, in her words, that it's in its best interest. But do we have any - I haven't read her op-ed piece, I'm not sure if she mentioned this before - but do we have any anticipated - I mean, do we anticipate that they would actually bend under such force or would they actually get more closed off and maybe turn to, I don't know, some other country that maybe also doesn't have our interest. I mean, I don't know their ties with Iran, for example, would be. But would they turn to...

CONAN: Well, they're members of the Arab League among other things. Susan Rice?

Dr. RICE: That's an excellent question. I think that history shows over the last 15 years that in dealing with the government of Sudan, the threat or the use of force actually can yield real results, which is one of the reasons why I reluctantly have come to the conclusion that we may be at that point. When President Bush after 9/11 said to state sponsors of terrorism if you are harboring terrorists, you are not on our side in the war on terrorism.

I don't know that the language was particularly felicitous, but the message was received loud and clear in Khartoum, which had been an active, long-term state sponsor of terrorism, had hosted Osama bin Laden for five years and continued to host many of its businesses. And suddenly, the government of Khartoum - when threatened with force by the Bush administration and recalling that it had been hit in 1998 following the East Africa embassy bombings by air strikes launched by the Clinton administration - did an abrupt about-face and began very suddenly - and I understand rather substantially - cooperating on counterterrorism issues when for years we had sought that cooperation and it had not been forthcoming.

That's one example of how military pressure has yielded change. In fact, the North-South Peace Agreement is also a story of how military pressure - in part from the southern rebel movement - persuaded the government that it was time to get into serious negotiations and agree to a comprehensive peace.

CONAN: We're going to give Eric Posner a chance to reply on this point as well. But, again, we have to take a short break, so please stay with us.

Also, when we return - and by the way, Richard, thank you very much for the phone call. When we come back from the break, food safety is on the Opinion Page today. Marion Nestle argues how many people have to be sickened or die before we change the nation's food safety system. If you'd like to join that conversation: 800-989-2855. E-mail us: talk@npr.org.

I'm Neal Conan. We'll be back after the break to continue on Sudan and take up the Opinion Page subject. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

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CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

Let's continue now our conversation on what to do about Darfur. Our guests are Susan Rice, senior fellow in Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and Eric Posner, professor of law at the University of Chicago.

And just before the break, we were talking about the threat of force, which in the past - Susan Rice argued - has been effective in changing the behavior of the government in Khartoum. But Eric Posner, part of the problem is if they do not change their behavior this time, then you have to follow through on the threat, no?

Prof. POSNER: That's the problem. And I don't believe that Sudan had nearly as great an interest in participating in Osama bin Laden's network as it does in preventing this separatist movement in Darfur. So it's going to be much more difficult to coerce them to cooperate on this score.

CONAN: Let's get another caller in. This is Lou. Lou calling us from Stratford in New Jersey.

LOU (Caller): Yes. I keep on listening to the discussion. To the professor, I'm just curious, how many deaths before we accept, before we take action? The United States is coming across as a hypocrite. We talk about morality, regime changed and yet we can allow people by the thousands to get slaughtered. Thank you for your comment.

CONAN: Thank you, Lou. And Eric Posner, I expect that's to you.

Prof. POSNER: Yes. Well, it's a serious problem. And one does want to try to help other people in the world when it's possible. The question is whether it's possible. Here I don't think there's any reason to believe that at this point a substantial military intervention would make things better - the sort of intervention that the American public would support.

I'm not saying that one should never intervene in genocides or in any other types of serious conflicts. But I think that the last - well, the Iraq War and the last 10 or 15 years have taught us that military interventions often do more harm than good.

CONAN: And finally, let's talk to Ron. And Ron's calling from Sacramento in California.

RON (Caller): Hi. How are you?

CONAN: Okay.

RON: I got a question. Why does a global superpower have to be the global superhero? You know, nations, governments and regimes have been in conflicts for thousands of years. Has history given us any government which has been able to maintain world peace? It seems like the United States and Europe is kind of like a global Stepfordism, where the U.S. and Europe are the keepers of the lodge. And maybe that's what we're looking for with the rest of the globe. Everybody just kind of follows the lead that they've been told.

CONAN: Susan Rice, I suspect that one's to you.

Dr. RICE: Thank you. We're a nation that was founded on the fundamental belief in the equality of all human beings. Our national values are deeply steeped in the notion of equality of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn't mean we have to be the world's policemen, but that does mean that when our conscience and our values are so profoundly offended as they are in the context of genocide, that for us to stand by and do nothing degrades our national character, calls into question our commitment to those values and I think makes us a lesser people and a lesser nation.

To his credit, I think President Bush has understood that and has been forceful in condemning the genocide in Darfur. The problem is that condemnations don't suffice. People are still dying, and we're doing not enough to stop it. So the question is are we satisfied with genocide continuing around the world when other human beings are suffering, just close our doors and close our eyes and say we don't care? Or are we the kind of people who believe in our founding values and are prepared to try to do something to uphold them?

CONAN: Susan Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration. She joined us today from the Brookings Institution, where she's now senior fellow in the foreign policy program. Thanks very much for being with us.

Ms. RICE: Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: Eric Posner is professor of law at the University of Chicago, co-author of the book, The Limits of International Law, and he was kind enough to join us today from studios at the University of Chicago. Thanks very much for your time today.

Prof. POSNER: My pleasure.

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