The Rhetoric of Genocide in U.S. Foreign Policy: Rwanda and Darfur Compared ERIC A. HEINZE The world is once again confronting the specter of genocide. Like Rwanda a decade before it, the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan promises to challenge the moral conscience of those actors who made the sacred promise of ‘‘never again.’’ The ceasefire signed in Abuja, Nigeria in May of 2006, while an important step toward ending the bloody conflict in Darfur, has not been signed by all factions to the conflict, is yet to be backed up by adequate force, and to date has had little or no effect on conditions on the ground. Thus, aside from the scarcely armed group of African Union (AU) monitors soon to be assisted by United Nations (UN) peacekeepers pursuant to the Abuja agree- ment, there has been little forceful action toward stopping the killings in Darfur. The United States, for its part, took the lead in condemning the Darfur atrocities as genocide, and in doing so, departed from the reasoning that in- formed the American diplomatic rhetorical response to Rwanda 10 years prior. That is, while the administration of Bill Clinton avoided the rhetoric of genocide in reference to the first unequivocal instance of genocide since the Holocaust, the administration of George W. Bush was quick to make this charge in Darfur amidst far more ambiguous circumstances. What accounts for this difference in rhetorical response? This article suggests that prevailing po- litical realities, both domestic and international, account for this discrepancy, thus rendering it politically possible, and even expedient, for the Bush admin- istration to use the rhetoric of genocide over Darfur. Since the genocide in Rwanda of 1994, a voluminous literature has emerged seeking to explain the origins of that crisis, why the UN and its member states (especially the United States) did not intervene to stop the killing, and exactly ERIC A. HEINZE is an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Oklahoma. His scholarly articles have most recently appeared in the Journal of Human Rights, Parameters, the Journal of Military Ethics, Polity, and the International Journal of Human Rights. His book, Waging Humanitarian War: The Ethics, Law and Politics of Humanitarian Inter- vention, is forthcoming with SUNY Press. Political Science Quarterly Volume 122 Number 3 2007 359