Philadelphia Inquirer, PA
Oct 14 2007

Worldview | Genocide resolution: Nice timing
Moralizing about events long ago is hurting us today.

By Trudy Rubin
Inquirer Columnist

What were they thinking?

No doubt members of the House Foreign Relations Committee felt
righteous about the nonbinding resolution they passed last week
condemning World War I massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as
"genocide." They sloughed off the warnings from Turkey, which rejects
the genocide charge.

Several 90-something Armenian ladies who survived the massacres were
in attendance in wheelchairs. Democratic legislators from states like
California and New Jersey with large Armenian constituencies were
pressing Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push the resolution. Everyone
cloaked himself in high moral purpose.

Yet this is a case of self-proclaimed moral intentions run amok.

The timing of this resolution couldn’t be worse. About 70 percent of
the military cargo sent to Iraq is flown through Turkey’s Incirlik
Air Base or on air routes over Turkey. Turkish officials warn they
will reconsider support for the Iraq effort if the resolution goes to
the full House.

Equally disturbing, the resolution comes just as Turkey is
considering a large-scale military invasion into northern Iraq to
wipe out Turkish Kurd terrorists (known as the PKK), who are
conducting bloody raids into Turkey from inside the Iraqi border.
Anti-Americanism is on the rise among ordinary Turks furious at the
United States for failing to stop the PKK raids.

The House resolution comes at the exact moment the Turkish parliament
is debating whether to authorize an Iraq offensive. U.S. officials
are urging Turkey not to invade; the House vote may tip the balance.

"The Turks are talking of a cross-border operation and Pelosi brings
this resolution up now?" muses Henri Barkey, head of the
international relations department at Lehigh University and a top
expert on Turkey. "Now the Turks have no choice."

One has to ask why this resolution was so urgent. It’s not about
Darfur, where the killing is going on now. The Armenian massacres
happened in 1915-23, and the empire that conducted them is gone.

Yes, Turkey should confront whether the deaths of as many as 1.5
million Armenians resulted from an Ottoman plan to drive them out of
the empire.

And it is shameful that Turkish law still prohibits open discussion
of the issue. Earlier this year the journalist Hrant Dink was killed
by a nationalist for calling the massacre of Armenians a "genocide."
On Thursday, his son, Arat Dink, was convicted of insulting Turkey’s
identity for republishing his father’s remarks.

However, many Turks are slowly struggling to open space to debate
this issue. Ironically, the House resolution will hurt their efforts.

After Dink’s assassination, tens of thousands of Turks gathered to
protest the murder. There were signs that the current Turkish
government – led by the moderate Muslims of the AK party – would try
to change the law that limits debate on the Armenian issue. However,
says Barkey, the House resolution "will make it harder to change the
law, because it will rouse nationalist feeling."

And here is another irony. The AK party has the support of many
Kurdish voters, and was reluctant to endorse an invasion into Iraq’s
Kurdish north. The House resolution has stirred up such emotion the
party may have to accede.

What’s most dishonest about the House move is the claim it won’t hurt
U.S.-Turkish relations. How short are congressional memories, and how
dismissive of Turkish democracy! In 2003, a Turkish parliament
outraged by the upcoming Iraq war refused to let the U.S. military
use its ports and territory to enter northern Iraq. This cost the
U.S. war effort dearly.

Turkish ire has been roused again by the House resolution. If Nancy
Pelosi brings it to the full House, Turkey may indeed curb its
support for the Iraq war effort. Moreover, if the United States wants
to withdraw from Iraq it will need those land and air routes. And if
we want to keep a base in Iraqi Kurdistan, the safest passage in and
out will be via Turkey.

So think about it, Speaker Pelosi. To make a statement about 1915,
you are hindering slow Turkish efforts to face the past, while
harming our national security. And you are making it harder to leave
Iraq. Your moralizing ignores facts on the ground and does exactly
the opposite of what you intend. That’s just the kind of stance that
got the Bush team into such trouble in Iraq.

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