The Obama administration's Sudan Policy Review has been officially released and the reviews are pouring in. Overall, the response to the policy is positive, with activists praising it for taking a stronger hand with the government in Khartoum and emphasizing the need for justice and accountability as a precondition to peace. However, as Mark Leon Goldberg points out at UN Dispatch, activists are still suspicious that the Obama administration will not take the necessary steps to ensure that the policy is properly implemented.

The policy outlines three strategic priorities in Sudan:

1. A definitive end to conflict, gross human rights abuses, and genocide in Darfur.

2. Implementation of the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement that results in a peaceful post-2011 Sudan, or an orderly path toward two separate and viable states at peace with each other.

3. Ensure that Sudan does not provide a safe haven for terrorists.

Over at the Save Darfur blog, activists are noting that in order for the policy to be effective, the Obama administration must ensure that Khartoum is not offered carrots until there have been verifiable changes on the ground in South Sudan and Darfur. They also argue that the U.S. must build a multilateral coalition to address the situation in Sudan and that President Obama must put his own weight and the weight of his senior staff behind implementation of the policy. (He has already been criticized for not personally rolling out the new policy.) Activists are also calling on Obama to raise the issue of Sudan with Chinese President Hu Jintao when he visits China next month.

For a thoughtful analysis of the policy and the steps that need to be taken to make it effective, see John Prendergast's response at the ENOUGH Project.

Foreign Policy asks what incentives and pressures the United States plans to use to influence the Sudanese government. There is a "secret annex" to the Sudan policy that contains this information, but it is not being released to the public. Foreign Policy suggests that the annex is being kept under wraps because of on-going conflicts between the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice over how to best deal with Khartoum.

The advocacy organization Refugees International has also come out with positive remarks on the policy, particularly because the United States is stating that it plans to provide greater support, including equipment, to the hybrid African Union-United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Darfur. They do criticize the administration, however, for not taking stronger steps to improve humanitarian access in Darfur, support community-based development and peacebuilding projects in the South, and provide increased support to women's programs.