While international attention remains riveted on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region - it has been more than two weeks since an Antonov transport belonging to the Sudanese military bombed a school, waterworks, and a busy marketplace in the villages of Um Sidir, Ein Bassar and Shegeg Karo, respectively.

In another blow to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the national census mandated by the accord ended amid reports of failure and acrimonious accusations of blatant manipulation.

This puts into doubt elections scheduled for next year and, ultimately, the potential of Sudan to be transformed into a democratic federal state, an eventuality whose chances were already fairly slim, even before the fighting at the edge of Khartoum last Saturday.

The population and housing census, which had already been delayed several times because of still-unresolved disputes over religion and ethnicity as well as how those displaced by conflict (largely South Sudanese) were to be counted, was supposed to be one of the key components of the CPA process since the results were to be used to delineate political constituencies in the lead-up to the general elections in 2009. The census results were to also to be used to determine distribution of the wealth flowing in from the approximately 500,000 barrels of oil.

Among the disputed points which highlight the bad faith of the Khartoum regime is its blatant cheating of its share of oil revenues, despite the fact that almost all of Sudan's known oilfields (with an estimated proven reserve of 6.4 billion barrels) except for the unproven offshore blocks on the Red Sea are in South Sudan.

The heightening tension have the potential to ignite "a new conflict that will be far deadlier and geopolitically more destabilising than the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur." However, as worrisome as the threatening crisis is, it does present the international community in general and the United States in particular with three significant strategic opportunities.

First, a North-South bloodbath can be averted - or at least greatly mitigated - if the effective elements of the South Sudanese government are empowered to defend themselves and their people.

Meanwhile, as I argued earlier this year, the People's Republic of China (PRC), which buys some 75 percent of Sudan's oil exports, has become Khartoum's largest arms supplier, selling or trading for oil a full array of goods from ammunition for 122 mm howitzers to armored trucks to T-59 tanks to Shenyang J-8 single-seat fighters and F-7 supersonic fighter jets.

At the very minimum, South Sudan needs an air defense system to protect itself against raids like the NCP regime continues to direct at civilians in Darfur.

Second, given not only the tragic history of the sufferings they have endured at the hands of successive governments in Khartoum, but also the more recent and repeated violations of the CPA and the failure of the international community to hold President Umar al-Bashir and his regime accountable for them, it is not only certain that South Sudanese would opt for secession in the 2011 referendum promised to them in the peace accord, but it is increasingly likely that they may just precipitate matters and declare independence sooner.

Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.