THE WRONG TIME TO RILE TURKEY
by Mortimer B. Zuckerman

U.S. News & World Report
October 29, 2007 Monday

As if we don’t have enough problems dealing with the present, we now
are in serious difficulties dealing with the past–about what happened
nearly a century ago in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

When "the sick man of Europe" finally expired, Turkish generals and
political leaders created a new nation, a new culture, and a new
self-image as a civilized, decent country. Modern Turkey has become a
crucial ally of the United States. Now the Turks are enraged because
the Democratic leadership in Congress has chosen this time to brand
Turkey with the terrible crime of genocide.

The Turks acknowledge that Armenians were massacred, but so, too,
they say, were many innocent Turks. The key question is whether
there was a systematic attempt to eliminate every Armenian because
of ethnicity or religion. Large numbers survived–which is more than
can be said of the Jews under the Nazis.

The weight of opinion among historians outside Turkey is to mark
the deaths as genocide. This is the judgment of some 22 countries,
including many in the European Union, which Turkey wishes to join. It
is an argument about history, but it has moral reverberations today
when ethnic cleansing is a plague. In Iraq, the Shiites wage ethnic war
against Sunni Muslims and Iraqi Christians, driving out at least half
of Iraq’s entire Christian minority of 2 million people. In Lebanon,
Hezbollah and Syria have combined to eliminate Maronite Christians
and their western allies. In Bethlehem, the home of the Church of the
Nativity, the former Christian majority has been reduced by Muslim
extremists to less than 2 percent. In Nazareth, the radical Muslim
mayor sought to build a mosque in the parking lot of the Church of
the Annunciation (an effort halted by the Israeli government).

Taboo topic. The Turks have not handled their history very well. They
closed state archives; they have punished people for raising the
subject. This has cost them credibility. But how wise is it for
Congress, at a particularly sensitive time, to get into the business
of rewriting history with respect to crimes committed nearly a century
ago by an empire that no longer exists? Few Americans would place the
Armenian disaster on a list of pressing issues. Similar legislation
has been defeated in the past, including in 2000 when Bill Clinton was
president. Eight former secretaries of state, three former secretaries
of defense, and Clinton have all come out against the congressional
exercise in branding.

We need good relations with Turkey. We need the Incirlik Air Force
Base in southeastern Turkey and passage through the Habur Gate on the
Iraq border to supply our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and, maybe
one day, to withdraw those forces. Some 70 percent of our supplies,
one third of our fuel, and all of our armored personnel carriers come
through Turkey. And we already have one nasty little crisis brewing:
The Turks are threatening to move into northern Iraq to deal with
the Kurdistan Workers Party, a terrorist organization that recently
crossed the border to murder nearly 30 soldiers, police officers,
and civilians.

There is a lot at stake. Support for America by the Turkish public
is down to only 11 percent, and right-wing nationalism and radical
Islam within Turkey are reviving, inflamed by xenophobic comments
from Europe’s leaders unwilling to admit Turkey to the European Union.

Turkey, let us not forget, is the only Muslim nation that has
long been grounded in the West, has membership in NATO, and has
bilateral ties to the United States. Now Turkey may seek alternative
affiliations, either with its Islamic neighbors or with Russia, so we
are on the verge of provoking an irreparable breach with this Muslim
country and with the Muslim world, reinforcing those who believe that
coexistence of western and Muslim countries is hopeless even for this
western-oriented, secular Muslim democracy. Turkey is remarkable
because it is secular even as it is Muslim; because it is western
oriented yet attached to the Islamic world; because it is committed
to democracy and economic reform under the leadership of an openly
religious Muslim party. It is a bridge to cross the growing schism
between the West and the Islamic world.

Modern Turkey must deal with the Armenian tragedy. A joint
international commission with access to archives would be a
good starting point–better at this time than an ill-considered
resolution. We must find the restraint and wisdom to find a more
appropriate time to address the issue of atrocities perpetrated by
long-dead rulers of a long-defunct empire instead of beating up on
modern Turkey, which did not exist at the time of the massacre. It’s
only a little more relevant than Muslims beating up on England for
bad things done in the Crusades–or Europeans on the United States
for its crimes against the American Indians.

America surely can expect more understanding of our national security
interest from the Democratic leadership of Congress.