Making a statement as he assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council, America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, began by tackling the ongoing genocide in Sudan. The first small steps are a beginning, but the killings will not stop by council gestures alone.

In a statement Friday, the Security Council declared its intention to transfer an African Union force of 7,000 troops to the command of the U.N. peacekeeping apparatus. “Military planners [in Washington] will work very closely with the Secretariat on that, and we’re trying to evaluate what’s necessary in Darfur,” Mr. Bolton told reporters after reading the statement, the first since he began leading the council Thursday.

Mr. Bolton added that more is to be done – including, perhaps, a resolution later in February or next month that will officially launch the new force. According to the U.N. representative in Sudan, Jan Pronk, this force needs to be at least 20,000-strong. But beyond numbers, it should also have a mandate to defend the innocents, which could mean that the government of Sudan, which so far has acted more as perpetrator than law enforcer, might lose some of its sovereignty and independence.

Since early 2003, between 200,000 and half a million people have been killed in Darfur. Millions have been displaced. The paralysis at the Security Council since the beginning of the crisis is a key illustration of the shortcomings of the strongest body at the United Nations.

Heavy Chinese investment in Sudan’s petroleum infrastructure has made oil-hungry China wary of seriously threatening Khartoum’s authority. Russia, always averse to punishing human rights violators, and Arab council representatives have joined China in protecting Sudan’s government. Europe talks a good game but has been slow to act. America, the most conscientious of the bunch, has been busy elsewhere.

Paralyzed, diplomats gambled that last year’s cease-fire agreement in the south of Sudan would spill over to Darfur. It did not. Then Europeans, eager to take America to task on Washington’s objection to the International Criminal Court, turned Sudan into a test case. The State Department allowed the court to play a role, but the ICC has contributed little to ending the atrocities. Names of suspected war criminals were sealed until the court could indict them. As result, a threat of sanctions on “individuals” involved in atrocities remains unrealized.

As the council continued to pursue such diplomatic solutions, the killing in Sudan intensified – now it has widened, too.

Since early December, Khartoum backed Sudanese and Chadian militias have been stealing across the border to Chad from Darfur, according to documentation reported yesterday by Human Rights Watch. Darfur villagers who were chased to refugee camps in Chad by the militias known as Janjaweed are now back in the crosshairs of the region’s warring factions.

“Dozens of witnesses, who were interviewed separately, described the attackers as ethnic Arabs visibly different from the local population, wearing Sudanese army khakis and speaking Sudanese Arabic,” yesterday’s Human Rights Watch report said, describing the ethnic dimension of the war that America alone has so far called genocide.

The mandate of the African Union troops does not allow them to interfere in the killing, and their numbers are too small to do so anyway. In a twist, Sudan was poised to take over the presidency of the African Union last month. The crisis was averted only when Congo Brazzaville was elected instead. Either way, Africa alone cannot marshal the political, logistical, military, and financial powers needed to resolve the problem.

Troops are needed on the border and in Darfur, along with helicopters to support them. Their numbers should be sufficient, and their task should be to protect civilians. “If that means deadly force, then that’s what it means,” Human Rights Watch’s Africa Desk director, Georgette Gagnon, said.

A no-fly zone over Darfur could send the political message to Sudan’s government, as could the imposition of sanctions on Khartoum officials and militia leaders. But all of that could only happen with “much greater international effort,” according to Ms. Gannon.

Churches, civil rights groups, and politicians from both parties have pressured the State Department to address Darfur, and America signaled its intention to take a stand by using the Security Council presidency to highlight the crisis. The best move, however, would be if America and like-minded countries declared that they will now do all they can to end the killings – with or without Turtle Bay, which so far has failed Sudan miserably.