The unfortunate reality about the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan is that a United Nations deadline for Khartoum to begin taking decisive action against civil conflict and genocide, set for Monday, will come and go with essentially no progress.

Indeed, the crisis has worsened, with the death toll estimates ranging to 50,000 and more than a million people at risk. Arab-African militias that may enjoy at least tacit government approval still have free rein to target, displace, kill, rape, disfigure, starve and otherwise terrorize farmers who are primarily black Africans.

It is not that anyone truly expected the government of Sudan to comply. The July 30 U.N. Security Council resolution contained little meat and even less muscle. It was more of a plea than an ultimatum. Sudanese officials in recent days have emphasized that their aim is not to set dates, suggesting that they have little attention.

Instead, they have pursued a dialogue with the African Union, which, in truth, is the organization that should be condemning most strongly and planning the most vigorous action to counter Darfur’s spiraling violence. After all, as refugees stream out of Sudan, that country’s neighbors will face growing disruption.

More important, though, the members of the African Union and its predecessor group, the Organization of African Unity, already bear collective shame for inaction in past cases of genocide on their continent. This is not the time for diplomatic coddling, lengthy discussions or half-measures.

Thus, when Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the African Union and host of talks with Sudan that could drag on into September, proposed sending African peacekeepers to Darfur, he should not have gestured so delicately. His weak overture almost guaranteed the result: Khartoum’s flat rejection. The Sudanese government agreed only to continue to allow a small number of African Union observers, a token force that distinguishes itself by its pitiful ineffectiveness, and a handful of Nigerian troops that will arrive this week.

Does all this cast the African Union, and the United Nations, for that matter, as paper organizations? Is there nothing that the international community could do to help the people of Darfur?

Those questions rolled through my mind last week as I listened to two Iraqi women, Taghreed Al-Qaraghuli and Surood Ahmed Falih, who placed a human face on the impact of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. They presented accounts of fright, terror, persecution and death that most Americans have never known. And they reinforced my belief that the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq — which happened prematurely and for questionable reasons, was justified in one sense: It liberated the Iraqi people from a decades-long, torturous experience at the hands of the one of history’s worst human-rights violators.

Most Americans do not see the human face of misery in Darfur. Others may have tired of the steady news-media coverage of developments there. The crisis also tends to lose itself in the cacophony of global troubles that consume U.S. attention, resources and lives — especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But even if Americans close their eyes or look away, Darfur will remain. The death toll will mount. And, one day, Americans will have to come to grips with the humanitarian crisis there. By that time, it will be too late, and the hapless people of Darfur will have joined a growing victims’ list linked to preventable genocide.

Surely the world could do better. My preference would be for the African Union to dispatch an intervention force, whether Khartoum welcomes one or not. As an alternative, the African Union could work with the United Nations to gather the necessary troops. If both hesitate, the United States must answer the call.

In any event, the time has come to stop asking the Sudanese government’s permission and opinions and start taking forceful steps to halt the carnage.

— Foreign-affairs columnist John C. Bersia, who works part-time for the Sentinel, is the special assistant to the president for global perspectives at the University of Central Florida.