EVERYTHING short of sending troops. That is the bottom line of the American approach to the Darfur crisis. Words, threats, intense pressure through the United Nations, and the heavy hint that it will step around the side of the UN if that tactic doesn’t work. But there is a blank in place of a policy if all that fails.

It would be wrong to accuse the US — or the UN — of ignoring Sudan. After all, US pressure helped to bring about the ceasefire in the 21-year civil war between the north and south, which had killed an estimated two million people.

But the Darfur crisis to the west — newer, smaller, and yet potentially as lethal as the civil war — offers would-be peacebrokers very few points of leverage.

The US heads the list of countries trying to put pressure on the Sudanese Government, for complex reasons of its own. The Christian Right long ago took up the cause of Christians in southern Sudan. In Congress, a rare alliance of black liberals and conservative Republicans has steadily pressed for action.

The Bush Administration seized on the issue as having special resonance, and has made the US the largest provider of aid to Sudan — $139 million this year, and $161 million next year.

Yet there is a conspicuous weakness in the US position: whether it has any real leverage on the Sudanese Government. Before he was elected, Bush said that if another Rwanda occurred in his presidency, he did not think it merited the sending of troops. Even if he had changed his mind — and he has not said — the lack of available troops would curtail his ability to act.

The US has also been torn by its desire not to undermine the Sudanese Government while it was negotiating an end to the civil war. It has in mind, too, that Sudan, which hosted Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, has been generally helpful since then in the War on Terror.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, and Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, both visited early this month, hoping that the glare of attention would shame the Government into getting a grip on the Arab militias terrorising the west, who have displaced 1.2 million people and prevented aid getting through.

Little has changed on the ground since then, although Libya agreed last week to open a channel for food aid and UN humanitarian supplies to Darfur.

The focus of American efforts has been through the UN. It has been circulating a new draft resolution which threatens sanctions within 30 days unless the Government moves fast to allow aid groups in and disarms Arab fighters.

But at the moment, it looks as if the US lacks enough support on the UN Security Council. China, together with Pakistan and Algeria, the two Muslim members of the council, have objected to the threats of sanctions.

The US has hinted that if the UN route fails, it might work around the Security Council, for instance through the African Union, which has promised a 300-strong protection force, through aid agencies, and by pursuing UN-backed peace talks.

But the bottom line is clear. With US troops overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only real tool the US has is the threat of sanctions — and it knows that they could themselves make a bad predicament worse.

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