Anyone who follows my writings knows I’m generally critical of the previous administration’s policies-- from domestic spending to foreign policy objectives. 

 

But there is one accomplishment of President George W. Bush that was very beneficial and extremely significant in world affairs, which must be acknowledged. 

 

I refer to the Bush administration’s involvement in Sudan—Africa’s largest country. Most Americans don’t know that the Bush administration played a major role in ending the war in Southern Sudan that had lasted more than 22 years and claimed the lives of over 2 million Southern Sudanese and displaced millions more. 

 

For years, the Christian community in America petitioned the U.S. government to intervene in the war in Sudan. The war was mainly fought between the Islamic north and the Christian and Animist south. 

 

The Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south was led by the late John Garang. Garang was educated in America and possessed an incredible intellect and understanding of his enemy. 

 

One of the main motivating forces in the war in Southern Sudan was Khartoum’s attempt to force Islamic law and culture on southerners. John Garang needed a major ally to force his enemies to bow to the post 9-11 world pressure on radical Islam. He found that ally in George W. Bush. 

 

With the Bush administration effectively holding a political gun to the head of Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir, this terrorist dictator, recently indicted by the ICC for war crimes connected with the Darfur genocide, was bullied into signing a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. The CPA granted enormous concessions to the SPLA, including self-government, freedom from Islamic law, a share in oil revenues, and the option to secede and become its own country in 2011. 

 

Garang was successful in convincing President Bush to extend his war on terrorism to Sudan, and broker a deal with Bashir that saved countless lives. Bush’s action also positions Southern Sudan in 2011 to be ultimately free from the shadow of Islamic domination that it has lived (and mostly died) under for centuries. 

 

This is not to say that Bush’s role was flawless. Because we have an “organic bureaucracy” in Washington, D.C., (i.e. one that cares little for law or elected law-makers), the State Department under Secretary Rice held a consistently schizophrenic position on Sudan. For instance, while President Bush declared sanctions against the northern government in Khartoum, Rice’s State Department published reports declaring Bashir’s government to be a “strong partner in the War on Terror.” 

 

But the bottom line is this: without the Bush Administration’s involvement in Sudan, we would not be seeing miracles happen in places that were killing fields just a few years ago. Organizations like the Persecution Project Foundation, and many other American and international aid organizations are able to help local people rebuild their communities because of the current peace in Southern Sudan.

 

The Bush administration has been criticized for starting wars that never seem to end. But in Southern Sudan, the Bush administration was able to play a key role in ending a war that had raged since 1983—without going to war, committing U.S. troops, or losing a single American life. I believe this is President Bush’s greatest foreign policy legacy, but one that is largely unknown to most Americans. But the Southern Sudanese people know.