WORSE THAN IRRELEVANT: A CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION ABOUT MASSACRES IN TURKEY 90 YEARS AGO ENDANGERS PRESENT-DAY U.S. SECURITY

The Washington Post
October 10, 2007 Wednesday
Regional Edition

It’s Easy to dismiss a nonbinding congressional resolution accusing
Turkey of "genocide" against Armenians during World War I as
frivolous. Though the subject is a serious one — more than 1 million
Armenians may have died at the hands of the Young Turk regime between
1915 and the early 1920s — House Democrats pushing for a declaration
on the subject have petty and parochial interests. Rep. Adam B.

Schiff (D-Calif.), the chief sponsor, says he has more than 70,000
ethnic Armenians in his Los Angeles district. Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.), who has promised to bring the measure to a vote on the
House floor, has important Armenian American campaign contributors.

How many House members can be expected to carefully weigh Mr. Schiff’s
one-sided "findings" about long-ago events in Anatolia?

The problem is that any congressional action will be taken in deadly
earnest by Turkey’s powerful nationalist politicians and therefore
by its government, which is already struggling to resist a tidal
wave of anti-Americanism in the country. Turkey’s prime minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called President Bush on Friday to warn against
the resolution. Turkish politicians are predicting that responses to
passage by the House could include denial of U.S. access to Turkey’s
Incirlik air base, a key staging point for military operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan. The Turkish parliament could also throw off
longstanding U.S. constraints and mandate an invasion of northern Iraq
to attack Kurdish separatists there, something that could destabilize
the only region of Iraq that is currently peaceful.

No wonder eight former secretaries of state, including Henry
A. Kissinger, James A. Baker III, George P. Shultz and Madeleine
K. Albright, have urged Ms. Pelosi to drop the resolution, saying
it "could endanger our national security interests in the region,
including our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and damage efforts to
promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey." Yet the measure
is proceeding: It is due to be voted on today by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.

Supporters say congressional action is justified by the refusal of
the Turkish government to accept the truth of the crimes against
Armenians, and its criminalization of statements describing those
events as genocide. It’s true that Turkey’s military and political
class has been inexcusably slow to come to terms with that history,
and virulent nationalism — not Islamism — may be the country’s
most dangerous political force. But Turkish writers and intellectuals
are pushing for a change in attitude, and formal and informal talks
between Turks and Armenians are making slow progress. A resolution by
Congress would probably torpedo rather than help such efforts. Given
that reality, and the high risk to vital U.S. security interests,
the Armenian genocide resolution cannot be called frivolous. In fact,
its passage would be dangerous and grossly irresponsible.