Major State Department briefing today with Special Envoy Gration, Assistant Secretary Carson and Samantha Power from NSC on Sudan diplomacy.
Interesting reference to Kenya leadership: “Regional leaders have a central role in the implementation of the CPA. The U.S. has been in close contact with Uganda’s Museveni, Ethiopia’s Zenawi, Kenya’s Odinga, and chair of the Pan-African Union Jean Ping.”

Maggie Fick writes at Foreign Policy about the risk of internal fighting within the South even if the referendum succeeds and things are stable between North and South. This is well beyond any claimed expertise on my part, but I have a hard time imagining that she isn’t completely right–and I would certainly hope that serious consideration and planning has been going on within the U.S. foreign policy and security establishment on this for quite some time. The “gold rush” mentality coming from foreign investors and even NGOs–will certainly be a factor. Remember that Rolling Stone article about the Americans and warlords and mass tracts of farmland just south of the North/South border?