Agence France Presse
Oct 12 2007
Ottoman history comes dangerously alive for US
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The fallout from a massacre in the dying days of
the Ottoman Empire has hit the United States, as ancient enmities
fuse with modern political theater to infuriate a crucial ally and
imperil the Iraq war.
Caught between a hostile Congress and an implacable Turkey outraged
at being accused of "genocide," the White House is scrambling to head
off diplomatic fallout that could radiate far and wide.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said 70 percent of air cargo, 30
percent of fuel shipments and 95 percent of new mine-resistant
vehicles destined for US forces in Iraq go through Turkey.
"The Turks have been quite clear about some of the measures they
would have to take if this resolution passes," he said, citing the
example of Turkish military sanctions against France.
But some observers said Turkey could be over-reacting to a
non-binding resolution in the House of Representatives, and US
Democrats eager to give President George W. Bush a bloody nose.
George Harris, a former State Department expert on Turkey, said the
country’s decision Thursday to recall its US ambassador for
consultations "shows a certain amount of seriousness."
But the Middle East Institute analyst added: "There’s a lot of
politicking going on. They have tied their hands a little bit by
stirring up such a hornet’s nest in Turkish public opinion."
Defying an unprecedented level of lobbying from both the US and
Turkish governments, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted
Wednesday to label the World War I massacre of up to 1.5 million
Ottoman Armenians as "genocide."
"This resolution was passed by the committee (in 2005) but it didn’t
go anywhere as the Republicans were in charge and they didn’t want to
embarrass President Bush," Harris said.
"(House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi has no such qualms about embarrassing
the president," he said.
Pelosi and several Democratic members of the House committee have
sizeable communities of ethnic Armenians concentrated in their
California districts.
The question now exercising the US administration is whether Turkey
will carry through on veiled threats of reprisals, such as shutting
off or restricting access to the sprawling Incirlik airbase.
"Those who claim Turkey is bluffing should not mock Turkey on live
TV," Egemen Bagis, vice chairman of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s AKP party, warned in Washington.
He noted that French military planes are no longer allowed to fly
over Turkish airspace, since France’s parliament last year declared
the Armenians’ post-1915 suffering to be a genocide.
If Turkey withdraws US access to Incirlik, "just imagine what this
will do to the United States," Bagis said.
Those consequences must not be underestimated, according to Steven
Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, who believes
the Turks are in deadly earnest.
"I don’t think this is a diplomatic pas de deux. What the resolution
has done is inflame Turkish public opinion," he said.
"The Turks have been saying for a long time that there are going to
be tangible consequences of this."
For Michael Rubin, a Turkey expert at the American Enterprise
Institute, the genocide dispute represents a "perfect storm" coming
as the Erdogan government agitates to go after Kurdish rebels in
northern Iraq.
An anti-US firestorm in Turkey risks drowning out the Bush
administration’s vocal misgivings about a cross-border incursion
against rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
"We’re in election season right now," Rubin added, reflecting on the
White House’s failure to head off the vote Wednesday.
"Unfortunately, many people in Congress are more concerned with
posturing than consequences."