Sudan Vision quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on US involvement in South Sudan:
Despite the far-reaching and enviable media freedom in the US, unsuccessful policies are (understandably) not given prominence. One of the few exceptions was William Eagles’s analysis of President Obama’s Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa (Voice of America-12 November 2012) in which he quoted J. Peter Pham of the non-partisan Atlantic Council. The leading intellectual did not mince his words: “In South Sudan, no one has pushed the door open for American business. The American government and people have helped bring about South Sudan’s independence; but the resources there are being tapped by the Chinese and others.”
The significance of this “complaint “is multiplied when we remember that US interests and US security were given by G.W. Bush and his successor as the reason for sanctioning the Sudan and pushing diplomatic and covert military buttons to help break up the country. Admittedly, the South Sudan vote for secession was overwhelming and it expressed a genuine desire for separate identity and separate sovereignty; but fervent US support was a decisive factor in the secession process as Dr J. Peter Pham quite rightly states.