Nicholas Kristof on genocide and Rory Stewart on Tolstoy and a book Bush should put on his reading list. Here’s Mr. Kristof:

For anyone who thinks that “genocide” is absolutely the rock-bottom possibility, keep an eye on Darfur.

The area of crisis has already spread from an area the size of France to one the size of Western Europe, encompassing Chad and Central African Republic while threatening to reignite the separate war between north and south Sudan. And aid workers increasingly are finding themselves under attack, so that humanitarian access is now lower than at any time since 2004.

Six weeks ago, I invited readers to send in their own suggestions for what we should do about Darfur, and the result was a deluge of proposals from all over the world.

The common thread was a far more muscular approach. Several readers suggested that we should dispatch a private force — supplied by a military contractor like Blackwater USA — to fight the janjaweed militia.

Many readers also recommended that we supply arms to Darfur refugees or rebel groups. Some people suggested that we blockade Port Sudan, through which Sudan exports oil.

Many also wanted a much tougher approach toward China, which has protected Sudan diplomatically. Some advocated a boycott of all Chinese products, while others favor a boycott of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

After inviting the discussion, I feel ungrateful in criticizing such well-meaning suggestions — but I’m afraid that in the aftermath of the Iraq war, aggressive military measures would be counterproductive. We would be handing President Omar al-Bashir a propaganda victory and a chance to rally support (“Those American crusaders are trying to steal another Arab country’s oil!”).

Likewise, Darfur is already awash with guns and irresponsible armed factions terrorizing civilians. The last thing Darfur needs is more AK-47s.

As for China, a boycott would antagonize ordinary Chinese and cause Beijing to dig in its heels. But I like the idea of activists like Eric Reeves of organizing a “Genocide Olympics” campaign to shame Beijing into better behavior.

Likewise, I approve of many suggestions that sought more television coverage of Darfur. The slacker now is ABC News. The Tyndall Report, which monitors network news coverage, found that ABC’s nightly newscasts included just 11 minutes of coverage of Darfur in all of 2006, compared with the 23 minutes ABC devoted to the false confession to the killing of JonBenet Ramsey. If only a Darfuri would falsely confess to killing JonBenet, maybe ABC would cover genocide ...

I’ve posted more reader suggestions on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground. But in general, what Darfur needs isn’t a single dramatic solution but a collection of incremental steps that add to the pressure for a peace agreement there.

President Bush could ratchet up the pressure by giving a prime-time speech on Darfur. He and Tony Blair could lead a summit on Darfur in Europe. He could invite leaders of China and Egypt to join him on a trip to a Darfur refugee camp in Chad.

Mr. Bush is expected to announce soon a series of financial sanctions on Sudan (similar to those that have inflicted considerable pain on North Korea and Iran), and those are welcome. Enforcing a no-fly zone would also help add to the pressure.

But the top priority for Darfur is something that few people talk about — a negotiated peace agreement. Peacekeepers are desperately needed, but the only real hope for lasting security is a negotiated peace among all the tribes of Darfur. And that is conceivable: an attempt last April came close, but ultimately a flawed deal was reached that made the conflict worse.

Human rights groups have laid out excellent proposals for a Darfur peace process, and they need a vigorous push. To get an agreement, Khartoum will have to make a few more concessions (such as naming a Darfuri vice president, uniting the Darfur provinces, verifying the disarming of janjaweed), and it will also have to allow rebels to meet to work out negotiating positions.

Western countries should also pledge to help finance reconstruction and compensation schemes, as incentives to wary Darfuris to back a peace deal. So far the U.S. has spent $2.7 billion on Darfur, and it would be a bargain to invest several hundred million dollars in a peace. Otherwise, north central Africa may collapse completely into war and anarchy, costing us countless billions and resulting in several million deaths over the coming decade.

You are invited to comment on this column at www.nytimes.com/ontheground. Interested in joining me on a reporting trip to Africa? I’ll be picking one university student and one school teacher in my second annual “Win-a-Trip” contest. Applications are accepted beginning today at www.nytimes.com/winatrip.

And now here’s Rory Stewart:

Politicians have taken to publicizing “reading lists.” President Bush, we were told, last summer was to read a comic historical novel on the first Afghan war and Camus’s “The Stranger.” The Tory members of the British Parliament were issued weighty books on Middle Eastern politics. But why is no one reading Tolstoy’s novel “Hadji Murad”?

Tolstoy served as a soldier in the Russian campaign in the Caucasus in 1851, which was presented as a mission to bring modern government and economic growth to a medieval Muslim state. It was resisted by a bloody jihad, one of whose leaders, Hadji Murad, kidnapped widows, annihilated Russian columns, executed 26 prisoners and twice joined and then defected from the Russian administration.

In a letter at the time to his brother, Tolstoy described Hadji Murad’s actions as “base.” Fifty years later, after having espoused nonviolence and apparently given up on writing novels, Tolstoy decided to make this warlord the center of one of the great portraits of violent occupation.

The action is driven by ignorance and corrosive bureaucracy. The occupiers are isolated: living in a barracks, being rocketed at night and encountering the local population only through raids on villages and sudden ambushes. The tactics switch at whim, the strategy is destabilized by political rivalries.

But the local population is equally fractured and confused. The Chechen leader of the resistance “had declared his campaign victorious but knew it had been a failure, that many Chechen villages had been burned and devastated and that the fickle, frivolous Chechens were vacillating, and those of whom were nearest to the Russians were ready to secede.”

Tolstoy stubbornly records details inside Russian camps and, transcendentally (for he was as isolated as any soldier in a foreign land), inside Chechen homes. He opens the novel with the smell of the dung-fed fire in a mud hut, where Hadji Murad is preparing his defection. The conversation has nothing to do with money or grand theories of progress. Instead, quick sparks of sentiment and honor flicker out of the rituals of greeting, eating and prayers.

This empathy allows Tolstoy to catch the generosity and joy in battle of a young Russian officer attacking a village, but also the burned house and the bayoneted boy. Tolstoy shows how, in the fine texture of the local resistance, self-interest can blend with honor, fury and religion in “a natural instinct akin to the instinct of self-preservation.”

In the simplest interaction between the two sides, different world-views shimmer around the language of the interpreters. Hadji Murad is asked whether he liked the capital, Tiflis:

“ ‘Alya’, he replied.

“ ‘He says, “Yes,” ’ said the interpreter."

‘And what did he like best there?’

“Hadji Murad said something in reply.

“ ‘He liked the theater best.’

“ ‘Well, and did he like the viceroy’s ball?’

“Hadji Murad frowned. ‘Every tribe has its customs. Our women do not dress so,’ he said.”

The occupiers and occupied both despise and mimic each other. Hadji Murad delights in a modern chiming clock and uses it to time his prayers. The Russian officer dresses like a Chechen. The different national honor codes drive fights but also reconciliations: greed and nobility combine in a single exchange. Hadji Murad presents a sword as an almost contemptuous gesture to a Russian; the recipient examines it to see if it is a fake.

After 50 years of reflection, Tolstoy no longer considers Hadji Murad “base” or even glamorous. He ignores Hadji Murad’s youthful adventures and begins with his defection as a middle-aged man, negotiating with spies for the release of his family and vainly petitioning the bureaucracy. In the viceroy’s palace, crowds of Russians gaze at Hadji Murad, but he disdains to look back. Tolstoy, who is normally judgmental, hardly explores the character of Hadji Murad. Instead, he maintains a respectful distance, concluding perhaps that it is not his place to judge. What Tolstoy recognizes, and what ultimately makes this the great portrait of occupation, is Hadji Murad’s autonomy.

Rory Stewart’s latest book is “The Prince of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.” He runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul and is a guest columnist this month.