Where is the White House on Darfur?

The Obama administration still cannot decide internally whether or not to call Darfur a genocide. You will recall that during Susan Rice’s first press availability as UN Ambassador she described the situation in Darfur as “an on-going genocide.” Well, today, the President’s Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration walked that back a bit in his first press availability. Via ABC News’ Kirit Radia,

“What we see is the remnants of genocide,” [Gration] said, implying the wartorn region’s worst violence is behind it. “It doesn’t appear that it is a coordinated effort that was similar to what we had in 2003 to 2006,”

The takeaway here is not to rehash the tired arguments over whether or not Darfur = genocide. Rather, the fact that the Obama administration does not apparently have a coordinated message on this point suggests the level of attention that Darfur is receiving from the National Security Council. This is a pretty basic point to hash-out through the inter-agency process. Apparently, though, it has not been subject to much White House discussion.