RECKLESS RESOLUTION

Toledo Blade
?AID=/20071015/OPINION02/710150311
Oct 15 2007
Ohio

THE United States is in the regrettable position of having a
92-year-old problem, genocide waged against Armenians in 1915 in the
old Ottoman Empire, creating a serious foreign policy and defense
problem with Turkey today.

The source of the problem is the folly of the House Foreign Relations
Committee, which voted 27-21 Wednesday to pass a nonbinding resolution
condemning Turkey for the massacre. It did so under pressure from
some of the country’s 385,000 Armenian-Americans.

There is no question that the 1915 genocide took place. It included
ethnically and religiously based killing of civilians and was
deplorable. At the same time it is important to look at historical
context. The killing occurred in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire,
eight years before the Turkish Republic, of which modern Turkey is
the embodiment, was established in 1923. Describing Armenian-Americans
lobbying for passage of the resolution as "Armenian genocide survivors"
is a misuse of words: A person born in 1915 would be 92 now.

Here is what is at stake in 2007. The Turkish government has deemed
the congressional resolution "unacceptable." Turkey, a NATO ally since
the Korean War, permits the delivery of 70 percent of U.S. military
air cargo and 30 percent of the fuel that goes into Iraq through its
facilities. Virtually all of the new anti-mine armored vehicles transit
Turkey. Also, Turkey rarely bluffs; last year it broke all military
ties with France when the French parliament passed legislation making
denial of the genocide a crime.

In addition, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after
the holiday at the end of Ramadan, plans to ask his parliament to
authorize a military incursion into the Kurdish region of Iraq, in
response to the recent killing by Kurds there of Turkish soldiers
and officials in Turkey.

The United States is asking Turkey not to take that action. The United
States has consistently favored and protected Iraq’s Kurds, starting
in 1991 after the first Gulf War. American oil companies are now also
seeking to take advantage of the absence of an Iraqi national oil
law to sign contracts with the Kurdish regional government. Turkish
military action in Kurdish Iraq would in general upset the U.S. apple
cart in that part of the country.

Some anti-war Americans might think Turkey would help end the fighting
in Iraq if it shut down deliveries of U.S. military equipment through
its territory to Iraq. That is, however, entirely the wrong reason
for passing the Armenia resolution.

Responsible congressional leadership should quietly but effectively
shut down action on the resolution now. The administration of
President Bush could then go to the Turks, point to that action,
pledge to control the Kurds in Iraq who are attacking the Turks,
and ask Turkey to stay its hand rather than carry out cross-border
attacks in northern Iraq.

The House committee’s resolution on events in the Ottoman Empire 92
years ago is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. It should not
be allowed to occur.