The Last Word: George Clooney; The frustrated American.(Interview)

Byline: Ginanne Brownell

George Clooney has played everything from a doctor to a CIA operative. But these days, the 45-year-old Oscar-winning actor (and Oscar-nominated director) is reveling in his role as an activist. Since first visiting Darfur in 2006, Clooney has been an outspoken critic of the genocide currently taking place in western Sudan. Last September he addressed the United Nations Security Council, urging it to act in Darfur. In December he traveled to China and Egypt to meet with state officials to put pressure on the government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. And January saw the U.S. television debut of "A Journey to Darfur," a documentary coproduced by Clooney and his father, Nick, a veteran television journalist. NEWSWEEK's Ginanne Brownell spoke to Clooney, who, lest anyone forget, is still a Hollywood actor. (He was recently voted People magazine's "sexiest man alive" for the second time and appears as a journalist in the new film "The Good German.") Excerpts:

BROWNELL: Why is there not more effort to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide while it is happening? The international community always seems to look back in hindsight and say, "We should have done something at the time." Do we never learn?

CLOONEY: Our problem is that the West and the United States have been able to broker things at other times. Obviously we did not do anything in Rwanda, but we played a big part with NATO in ending the Bosnian situation. We used to be able to do that. But [in] our [personal] meetings with all of the heads of government they said to us, "Your policies in Iraq have made it impossible for you now to threaten anything." We have no moral high ground. We have to look to anyone but ourselves to be able to broker some sort of a peace treaty. That is a very frustrating place to be.

The International Criminal Court is due to present its findings from an investigation into war-crimes allegations in Darfur soon. What effect will this have?

It is rather astonishing that the United States does not play ball with the ICC, considering our country was the beacon of the idea of an international criminal court. I really like what the ICC is doing. [But] I do not know how effective it is. I suppose if everybody subscribed to it, it would be tremendously effective. But I do not think that is going to happen in the near future.

You spend a great deal of time traveling internationally. Does being an expat give you a different perspective on U.S. foreign policy?