ICC v. Sudan: Game on

So, not official yet, but it sounds like the International Criminal Court has approved an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir (NYT). Some initial reactions...

Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, Sudan's ambassador to the UN :

It will mean nothing to us and doesn't deserve ink with which it is written. We will never be shaken by this criminal attempt to pollute our political life and sabotage our efforts for development and peace. (Reuters)....We can't predict the public outrage of the people. We cannot predict or control that. (WP)

Mark Malloch Brown, Britain's Africa minister (Reuters):

We will face a very difficult situation after this indictment, and I just hope people of goodwill will go on trying to find ways forward.

Mark Goldberg (UN Dispatch):

If handled with the proper diplomatic touch, this warrant will make peace in Darfur and Sudan more, not less, likely. Others disagree. They argue that the ICC is an impediment to peace because it gives Bashir little incentive to work with the international community. The problem with that line of reasoning, though, is that it ignores the fact that Bashir was never a credible partner for peace. This is because from the start of the conflict until today, Bashir never faced external political pressure sufficient to budge him from an unrelenting hostility toward international efforts for peace in Sudan.