Amid the recent comments by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that the world should prepare for war with Iran if they produce nuclear weapons pervades an uneasy and growing tension between Islamic and non-Islamic governments. Not before the current US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have ceased, now France has begun demonizing Iran and drawing sides in preparation for a war with the nuclear ambitious Islamic state. How can the Western world set about a peaceful, diplomatic engagement with Iran if they constantly pigeon-hole them as the ultimate enemy set on an unalterable course to nuclear war? The answer is they can’t. The second that our rhetoric posits Iran as the newest nuclear enemy bent on their own path to war, any attempt at diplomacy is severely weakened leaving the West with few options short of war.

With the announcement that the Sudanese government under President Omar al-Bashir is close to reopening negotiations with rebel groups in Darfur, promising a ceasefire in the meantime, the Sudanese people along with the rest of the world may finally see and end to the violence in sight. But we must not get our hopes up quite yet. Several attempts at peace including an actual ceasefire have all lagged and eventually broken down completely over the last three years as genocide has continued in Sudan. As the report details the upcoming negations in Libya, it is hard to believe that this time around any agreement will stick as the government has yet to acknowledge their support of the Janjaweed militias who carry out the genocide. Bashir’s rhetoric about bringing an end to the nearly decade long conflict have amounted to nothing but hollow promises. His Islamic government has financed and supplied the Janjaweed militias for several years in their attempts to destroy all existence of the non-Arab African population in the western Darfur region. As the African Union remains largely ineffective in containing the violence, constrained by weak mandates and poor logistical support, the UN now stands to beef up its police force in the Darfur region.