Chicago Sun-Times
April 7 2007

Resolution on Armenian genocide risks foreign policy

Backlash could compromise Turkey’s role as gateway for supply of U.S.
forces in Iraq

April 7, 2007
BY JOEL J. SPRAYREGEN

Congress is on the verge of inflicting a devastating blow to U.S.
foreign policy. At issue is a resolution introduced in the House of
Representatives that brands as genocide the deaths and deportations
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Turkey is the gateway for supply of U.S. forces in Iraq as well as
supplier of basic necessities — food, water, gas, electricity — to
Iraq. Turkey has been a staunch American ally in NATO; Turkish forces
play an important role in Afghanistan.

Passage of the resolution — which Turks see as officially adjudging
them to be a nation of barbarians — will produce popular indignation
that no Turkish government could ignore. As Professor Soner Cagaptay
of Princeton University says, ”This backlash would inevitably
cripple U.S.-Turkish military cooperation.”

The modern Turkish Republic, successor to the Ottoman Empire within
shrunken borders, is the only Muslim country in the Middle East that
maintains a functioning democracy. Turkey borders Iran, Iraq, Syria
and Russia. Passing a self-serving resolution condemning Turks for
horrific things that occurred 90 years ago would alienate an
important ally without achieving anything of substance for the United
States. An American rebuff, added to recent European actions hostile
to Turkey, would only strengthen malign anti-Western Islamist and
nationalist minorities in Turkey.

Armenians contend 1.5 million or more people were systematically
killed between 1915 and 1923. Turks say a far smaller number of
people died, not by deliberate extermination, but as a consequence of
a brutal war in which Armenians were deported because they sided
militarily with invading Russians. There is no doubt that large
numbers of Armenians suffered terrible deaths and deportations;
Muslim civilians were also ravaged.

The weight of opinion outside Turkey has favored Armenian claims. But
Chris Morris, British author of The New Turkey, says: ”Both sides
produce stacks of documents to back up their arguments . . .”
Respected historian Guenter Lewy concludes, ”The primary intent of
the [Ottoman] deportation order was undoubtedly not to eradicate an
entire people but to deny support for the Armenian guerrilla bands
and to remove Armenians from war zones.” The tragic consequences for
Armenian civilians should be remembered. But politicians have no
qualifications to judge Ottoman intentions nine decades ago.

Similar congressional resolutions have failed to pass in recent
years. The reason the current resolution is being pushed by more than
160 House co-sponsors is that the November elections empowered
California Democrats, and there are many Armenian Americans residing
in California and elsewhere who are actively lobbying. They deserve
respect for keeping alive the memory of what happened to their
ancestors, but not at the price of rupturing relations with a key
American ally.

Turkish Americans are too few to lobby effectively. Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, ignoring concerns persuasive to prior House leadership, has
scheduled a rushed vote for this month. Pelosi should ask the
Department of Defense what would happen if Turkey curtailed
co-operation with U.S. forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

There is much Turkey can do to prevent congressional resolutions from
becoming a perennial irritant, e.g., tempering anti-American
propaganda in media close to the ruling AKP party and increasing
protection of human rights. Turkey is not improving its image by
cozying up to Hamas terrorists.

But passage of this resolution would inflict a major foreign policy
disaster on America by rupturing relations with a country vital to
execution of our foreign policy.

CChicago lawyer Joel J. Sprayregen participates annually in a
symposium in Istanbul to advance civil society in Turkey.