Answering questions before a congressional panel last week, President Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, conceded that the United States government’s new Sudan policy included direct negotiations with Sudanese officials complicit in an ongoing genocide.

This simple, apparent, yet profound admission should alarm anyone concerned about our ability to deter future genocides. Sudan is the test case of the United States declaring genocide in progress; how we react and with whom we negotiate in Sudan will shape how — and how effectively — we confront the world’s worst human rights abusers, for decades to come.