The International Criminal Court in the Hague just issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for the crimes committed by his government in Darfur. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, maybe not. John Rosenthal argues here that the ICC has aimed at the wrong suspect; al-Bashir is not as bad as his chief rival, Hassan al-Turabi, who stands to gain most from the attack on al-Bashir.
Turabi is the Islamist leader who welcomed Osama Bin Laden into Sudan in the 1990s, and reportedly fell out with his erstwhile ally al-Bashir when the latter expelled Bin Laden in response to international pressure. He is also the inspiration for one of the two rebel factions in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). What, you may wonder, are the politics of JEM? Well, like those of the other rebel faction, they include sympathy for Osama Bin Laden.
If your head is reeling and you really don't know how to untangle this mess...take it as a sign of mental health. What is unhealthy is thinking that, often on the basis of partial or misleading information, you can solve a complex problem by hauling someone before a foreign court in a distant land.
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