IN defiance of the International Criminal Court and the arrest warrant it has issued against him for war crimes in Darfur, Sudan’s President Omar Bashir has been to Eritrea and Egypt. It is clear that he will now travel to Doha for the two-day Arab Summit beginning on Monday and for the summit of Arab and South American leaders, which takes place immediately afterward. Indeed, it would not be surprising if he did not now embark on a whirlwind tour of Arab and African capitals to demonstrate his scorn for the ICC. He may even go further afield.

For Arab countries and African ones, rejecting its warrant does not mean rejection of the ICC or contempt for it. It is not because President Bashir is the leader of an Arab or African country that the Arab League and the African Union (AU) have rallied to his side and refused to carry out requests to arrest him — and no Arab country is going to force down his plane as he flies overhead to Qatar, despite the fantasying of ICC officials.

The reasons are far more pragmatic. There is a real fear that Bashir’s arrest could violently destabilize Sudan. The country has enough problems as it is: Darfur, an uneasy peace in eastern Sudan and a deal between north and south that could be blown wide apart by competing claims to oil-rich border territories. A power vacuum at the center would be enough to tip Sudan over the edge.

Arabs cannot afford another Iraq, Africans another Somalia. It was the power vacuums in both that allowed the poison of Al-Qaeda to spread within and beyond.

For Africa too, there are other disastrous regional implications of a Sudan in flames. It would impact on all its neighbors, particularly Chad, where political divisions are closely linked to those in Sudan, and in Uganda and DR Congo. There, the Lord’s Resistance Army — the nearest “Christian” equivalent of Al-Qaeda; equally fanatical and equally murderous — is on the run. Instability in Sudan could give it a new lease of life. Lastly, there is the destructive rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea who will use anywhere as a proxy to continue the fight.

That is the reason the Arab League, the AU, even the international aid agencies banned by Sudan are so opposed to the warrant. It is not an act of solidarity with President Bashir. It is an act of deep concern about the country itself. That is why both the Arab League and the AU want the warrant delayed at least a year, to give time for a compromise to be found. Saying No to the ICC is not lightly done. There are real risks for governments. Aid and trade could be threatened. Those who say that states which have not signed up to the ICC are not obliged to carry out its arrest warrants are wrong. The investigations were carried out at the UN’s request; the warrant has the force of UN law behind it. But the stability and unity of Sudan come first. It needs all the help it can get at the moment. This is not the time for an act that could threaten its existence.

Whereabouts unknown

TWO years into his term, the man who ought to be the world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is conspicuous only by his reticence, at a dangerous time, said The Times in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts:

Gordon Brown’s meeting with Ban yesterday should have been an occasion of great import. A world ravaged by international economic, environmental and security problems, which cry out for multilateral solutions, surely needs the UN more and more. Yet under its current head, the UN is a bit player. Ban has been virtually inaudible on important questions of international security.

He has so far been ineffectual on the pressing matter of climate change. He has had almost nothing to say about the economic and financial crisis, leaving a vacuum that is now being filled by the G-20. This group, which meets in London next week, is fast becoming the new body of global governance by default. But it represents only two thirds of the world’s population, and 80 percent of world trade, and it does not even have a secretariat.

There is an old joke that the UN is a place where nations that will not act individually come together to decide that they cannot act collectively. Any body that encompasses 192 member states is bound to struggle to achieve coherence.

But leadership can make all the difference. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision was that the UN secretary-general would be a “world moderator” of stature. Ban, by contrast, seems to be more secretary than general. With the world facing the dire consequences of the downturn, and a possible resurgence of protectionism, the UN needs to find its voice. There is still no other forum capable of mobilizing so many countries to counter the globalization of organized crime and terror, an expanding arms race, new threats from failing states, the degradation of the oceans and the global atmosphere.

The UN can help to set the agenda in these areas, even if it does not control the action.