GRANDSTANDING HAS CONSEQUENCES: IT’S AMATEUR HOUR IN CONGRESS.

By Michael Rubin

National Review Online, NY
Oct 15 2007

Last week, a congressional committee passed a resolution condemning
the Armenian genocide. There is no doubt that up to a million Armenians
died during World War I, although historians still debate whether their
deaths constitute deliberate genocide or are collateral casualties
of war.

House Democrats brought the resolution to a vote despite entreaties
from the White House to postpone it. For Congress, though, the
resolution was less about rectifying history than grandstanding.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos (D., Cal.) called a
vote. It passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pooh-poohed
the episode. This was not about Turkey, she explained, but rather
"about the Ottoman Empire." Unclear, though, is why congressional
Democrats felt the urgent need to condemn an entity that hasn’t
existed for 85 years.

Unfortunately, grandstanding has consequences. Turkey recalled its
ambassador; and now the State Department finds itself now devoid of
leverage to prevent a Turkish incursion into Iraq to fight Kurdish
terrorists. Pelosi’s posturing has put U.S. use of the Incirlik Air
Base in Turkey to supply our forces both in Afghanistan and Iraq
in jeopardy.

If only the Armenian Genocide resolution was an isolated event. It’s
amateur hour in Congress. The efforts of Sen. Joseph Biden (D., Del.)
to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious grounds threaten to spark
civil war just as U.S. servicemen make inroads in preventing it.

Biden’s motivation may be to garner media attention. He has
succeeded. The problem, though, his statements get more airtime in
Iran and Iraq, where revolutionary mullahs use his pronouncements
to convince Iraqis that U.S. forces seek to destroy Iraq rather than
rebuild it.

The list goes on. In May 2006, Rep. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.) said that
U.S. Marines executed Iraqis "in cold blood." Overnight, his clip
became an Al-Jazeera favorite. Islamist terrorists used Murtha’s
words to justify their murder of Americans. Now, a court martial
has dismissed murder charges against the servicemen Murtha accused;
Murtha has yet to apologize.

Other congressmen see intelligence briefings as an ala carte menu
for chest-thumbing leaks than part of confidential oversight duties.

Every leak splashed across a New York Times undercuts the war on
terror.

Junkets also have a cost. Basking in the glow of Pelosi’s
headline-garnering visit to Damascus – again in contravention of a
State Department request – Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad upgraded his
support for Hezbollah and his nuclear dealings with North Korea.

The resolution, while important to the Armenian-American community –
perhaps less so to Armenians living in Armenia who worry much more
about economic development – also raises a host of questions about
how Congress picks and chooses which atrocities to weigh in on. While
Condoleezza Rice seeks to bring Beijing on board with Iran sanctions –
a Herculean if not impossible task – will the House Foreign Affairs
Committee condemn Beijing for the millions who perished during the
Cultural Revolution? Their murders – politically motivated and, as
far as the historical record is concerned, far more deliberate and
coordinated – also occurred much more recently. Perhaps the House
Foreign Affairs Committee will also act to bring Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Masud Barzani
to justice for ordering the disappearance and summary executions of
perhaps 3,000 Kurds during the 1994-1997 Kurdish civil war. This is
not to suggest that such cases should not be pursued. But, the House
Foreign Affairs Committee is not the place to pursue such historical
investigations; universities are.

In an election season, Pelosi, Biden, and Murtha, may have no greater
goal than to garner headlines, but U.S. servicemen fighting terrorists
in Iraq and Afghanistan do. Countering proliferation and fighting
terrorism will dominate diplomacy regardless of who next occupies
the White House. There’s no time for amateur hour. As U.S.

troops continue to sacrifice to defend U.S. national security, it is
unfortunate that headline seeking congressmen seek to make their job
that much harder.

– Michael Rubin, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.