DEMOCRATS MUST REALIZE TURKEY’S IMPORTANCE

Jamestown Post Journal, NY
Oct 25 2007

10/25/2007 – Turkey, despite occasional internal roiling, remains
the Middle East’s only stable, moderate democracy.

It’s also a key U.S. ally, and the Turkish government has, despite
its misgivings about the de facto establishment of a Kurdish state in
northern Iraq, refrained from interfering in Iraq. In fact, Turkey now
allows significant U.S. trans-shipment of military supplies through
its territory.

This is all reason to be astonished at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s
decision to bring to the House floor a resolution condemning Turkey’s
1915 genocide in Armenia.

Modern Turkish governments and other Turkish partisans take offense
at almost any mention of the 1915 genocide, which was committed by
the long-gone Ottoman Empire. They even question the historical fact
of the genocide, primarily for reasons of domestic Turkish politics.

Anyone who has touched this issue – and that includes congressional
leaders, State Department officials and every recent president
– knows that bringing it up has no geopolitical upside and yet
tremendous geopolitical downside in the form of damage to U.S.-Turkish
relations. Yet Pelosi, whose home district parochial interests include
a well-organized Armenian community, pressed ahead with her resolution
anyway, and when it cleared a House committee Turkey immediately
recalled its ambassador from Washington – a serious protest.

Pelosi’s resolution is opposed by the Bush administration, as well as
several former secretaries of state, including Clinton-era Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright, for good reason: Now is not the time to
dredge up past unpleasantness in Turkey’s history, and perhaps force
the Turkish government, in service of its sensitive domestic politics,
to save face by stopping U.S. supply movements through Turkey or,
worse, sending Turkish troops into the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Pelosi, assuming she is not completely daft, knows all this. Thus
one must raise the question: Have House Democrats gone so completely
bonkers in their hyper-partisanship against President Bush that they
are willing to intentionally sabotage U.S. efforts in Iraq?