If your diplomacy is founded on mediation and, as Americans are wont to say, playing the honest broker, but one side gets the distinct impression that you are “selling it down the river,” either they are paranoid or you are doing something wrong. One possibility does not exclude the other, but according to Roger Winter, possibly the American with the deepest understanding of Sudan, the Obama administration’s special envoy to this woebegone land of 41 million people is sending messages likely to dishearten one side while emboldening the other. As a result, the incentive for compromise and cooperation diminishes, and a renewal of all-out war becomes more likely.
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