Calm in Sudan? Stay tuned

When the International Criminal Court''s chief prosecutor announced charges of genocide and war crimes against Sudanese President Omar Bashir, the immediate response from the legions of diplomats, experts and humanitarian officials who cover the war in Darfur was not to celebrate a victory for international justice. Far from it. The general feeling was concern that the indictment of a sitting head of state -- who's about as likely to admit wrongdoing and turn himself in as Robert Mugabe -- could further destabilize Sudan, make things worse in Darfur and jeopardize a hard-won peace agreement in Sudan's other long civil war, that between the north and south, which ended three years ago.

So it's been a week. What's happened? Alex de Waal, one of the best Darfur experts out there, wrote on Thursday that Bashir's fractious ruling National Congress Party has apparently decided to respond with diplomacy, not fury. Rather than lash out at the court in a way that could imperil peacekeeping or aid efforts in Darfur, or put the lives of Westerners in danger, they're trying to lobby friendly Arab and African states to reject the indictment, and to unite citizens against the genocide charge, which they're pitching as an affront to the nation. On Thursday, at least, de Waal could say that the case against Bashir

has not led to disaster in Sudan. The CPA (north-south agreement) is intact, the UN operationsare continuing, there have been no clashes between governmentsupporters and enemies. In fact, the country appears calmer than lastweek.

I read that and felt pretty good. Then, today, I see this dispatch from my friend Rob Crilly in Khartoum:

Today Bashir's government doesn't seem as confident. Fearing (a) a Western-backed coup or (b) another rebel offensive like the one in May that nearly penetrated Khartoum, Rob writes that the military is out in force:

Now helicopter gunships menacingly patrol overhead, foreigners in Darfur have been warned they face death, tanks guard the Nile bridges and troops are   preparing to dig a defensive trench around Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman.

So which is it: calm or crisis?

It's always difficult to read the tea leaves in Sudan, which Bashir has controlled with an iron fist for nearly 20 years, and it's not any easier doing it from Nairobi. But the alarmist reports notwithstanding, my money for now is on stability.

For one thing, the Sudanese Arab-African diplomatic offensive appears to be working. The past week saw a steady drumbeat of criticism of the indictment from influential quarters like South Africa and the African Union chairmanship. Even France floated the idea that Bashir might make "a gesture" to the court by handing in the two other Sudanese charged last year with war crimes in Darfur. A horse trade right out of "The Wire" -- and naturally, Bashir's people rejected that idea immediately.

The second thing is that Bashir and the whole of Sudan have too much to lose by getting carried away with indignation at the ICC. The oil-fueled economy is booming, and despite U.S. sanctions relations with the United States are warming. Diplomats tell me that Sudan has climbed out of the Bush administration's doghouse by helping out in the war on terrorism, though how exactly no one seems to be able to say. The next step could be a relaxing of U.S. sanctions, which would mean a windfall for powerful people in the government.

The U.S., like Sudan, isn't a party to the ICC. It was telling that President Bush, when asked by reporters about Bashir's indictment, said: " My thought on Sudanis that the United Nations needs to work with this current governmentto get those troops in to help save lives."

Even Darfur rebels aren't particularly moved by this indictment one way or the other. I just got off the phone with a member of the Justice and Equality Movement, the leading Darfur rebel group. On a crackly cell phone line from Chad, Izzadin Bajji said: "What is important is to have Sudanese solution to the problems of Sudan."

Perhaps Bajji is just worried about the court coming for his group next. But all in all, it hasn't been a terrible week for Bashir -- and that can't be good news for the ICC.