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To save more lives, diplomats and the Save Darfur Coalition should focus on preventing the next genocide in Sudan. Sudan needs a totally new bargain between all its parts - north, south, east and western Darfur - that includes acknowledging all cultures in diverse Sudan and sharing the oil wealth.

Diplomats have achieved peacekeepers in dusty Darfur. That was hard enough - but now they must help Sudanese sew together a new bargain between all Sudan's people, a convention that includes rebels from the eastern part of the country too.

The history of Sudan reveals that the Khartoum-based central government might be evil, but it is not stupid. It commits genocide strategically - never against two groups at a time - and focused on regions attempting to break away from Sudan.

First, for twenty-one years, 1983-2005, Khartoum lashed out at the southerners, in a war that pitted northern Muslims against southern Christians. Khartoum actually killed over 2 million southerners as of 2002, over 4 times more than the debated 4 hundred thousand victims in Darfur.

Second, once the rebels in the Darfur west started causing trouble, Khartoum closed the war with southerners so that it could open up a new war against the westerners.

Third, Khartoum decided recently to permit foreign soldiers to keep peace in western Darfur - a surprise to me.

Perhaps now Khartoum seeks the flexibility to start war in a forgotten crisis in another part of Sudan. After all, rebels from the east have been causing headaches for Khartoum. If rebels or refugees ever threaten Port Sudan, where all the oil is exported, they may expect retributive genocide from Khartoum.

In Sudan, genocide is an imperial strategy, not an emotional decision. If you want to Save Darfur, you should also want a peace deal for all of Sudan.