THE COMING BETRAYAL OF THE ARMENIANS

The Reality-Based Community
October 8, 2008 Wednesday 11:32 PM EST

Oct. 8, 2008 (The Reality-Based Community delivered by Newstex) — I
don’t doubt for a second that Barack Obama is completely sincere in his
belief that the Ottoman Empire committed deliberate genocide against
the Armenians in the second decade of the last century. After all, it
happens to be true. And if that gets him some Armenian-American votes
that otherwise would have gone to John McCain, I won’t be very unhappy.

But the Armenian-Americans will. After Obama gets elected, he will
confront two facts: facts which he surely knows now, and which his
expert advisers and the career diplomatic corps will din into his
ears. First, for reasons of Turkish internal politics, a formal
recognition by the United States of an historical reality that no
non-Turkish historian doubts would make our relationship with Turkey
very much harder, and strengthen the forces within Turkey that are most
inimical to us and to democracy and human rights in Turkey. Second,
our relationship with Turkey, and Turkey’s continued development
toward a democratic country where human rights are respected, matters
enormously to us. Along with Indonesia, Turkey is the Muslim-majority
country most hostile to jihadism, and Turkey is much closer to where
the trouble is. If there’s to be a peaceful settlement in Iraq, the
Turkish government is going to have to hold still for more autonomy
in Iraqi Kurdistan than Turkey wants. For all these reasons, we
need the Turks. We don’t need the Armenians. The President of the
United States is a statesman, not an historian. Yes, it’s completely
unreasonable for both the Kemalist Turkish establishment and the
Islamic-but-not-Jihadist Justice Party that now has a the majority
of the voters behind it to take personally a statement that applies
to a long-dead regime both of them heartily despise. But lots of
unreasonable things are nonetheless true. So Obama will be told that,
while in office, he’s not allowed to state the truth, and the Armenian
community will react bitterly to the double-cross. That’s life in
the big city. Newstex ID: TRBC-0001-28628866