Hurriyet, Turkey
March 5 2010

The rough cowboy

Friday, March 5, 2010
YUSUF KANLI

The pertinent habit of resurrecting the `Armenian genocide’ resolution
in the U.S. Congress might be taken as a good example of American
blackmail politics on the one hand and badly played Russian roulette
on the other.

One way or the other, it comes up again near every April 24, the
anniversary of the alleged 1915 killings in the then-dissolving
Ottoman Empire.

The U.S. Congress is very much like the rough cowboy with only one
bullet in his revolver, poised at the communal conscience of the
Turkish nation, playing Russian roulette. So far the trigger of the
revolver has always fallen on one of the empty bullet slots, but
sooner or later, it will fall on the bullet ` and once and for all,
whatever may happen will happen. Indeed, the constant scare may be
worse than death itself.

This time, the rough cowboy at the U.S. House of Representatives was
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman. Once again, in a
farcical vote spanning for almost two hours ` in order to garner
sufficient support to approve and dispatch the draft to the House
floor ` the committee decided to make a historical assessment and
condemn the Turkish nation for undertaking an act of genocide against
the Armenian population of Anatolia between 1915 and 1923.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
made some last-minute face-saving gestures, as if they were against
the committee’s approval of the draft. But in effect, their
intervention was too little, too late and apparently had no further
meaning than arming themselves with an excuse: `We have requested the
draft not to be adopted, but that was what we could, we cannot dictate
to the Congress what it should or should not do.’

Indeed, both Obama and Clinton, as well as most of the members of the
House committee, share almost the same opinion with the committee
chairman, who extended the voting period three times in order to help
supporters of the motion find and bring into the session sufficient
affirmative representatives and thus get the draft approved. They
differed, however, on the timing and opposed the move out of concern
over the possible fallout of such a development on both bilateral
Turkish-American relations and the Swiss-mediated Turkish-Armenian
protocols for better relations ` awaiting parliamentary approval in
both countries.

Indeed, Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu, who minutes after Thursday’s
vote angrily recalled the Turkish Ambassador to Washington `for
consultations,’ complained at a news conference Friday that the Obama
administration had not sufficiently put its weight behind efforts to
block the vote. The minister called the issue a matter of `honor’ for
his country and said Turkey would assess next week what other measures
to take.

In 2007, when a congressional committee passed a similar resolution,
Turkey briefly recalled its ambassador to Washington as well. But the
chill in Turkish-American relations was left behind after former
President George W. Bush, concerned about Ankara’s stopping its
collaboration with the U.S. and blocking access to the Ä°ncirlik Air
Base ` considered to be of key importance for the Iraq and Afghanistan
operations of the U.S. military ` intervened and persuaded the House
speaker to keep the resolution from going to the full House.

Now, Ankara is expecting a similar attitude from the Obama
administration and Turkish leaders have started warning that the
adoption of such a resolution, though not binding on the U.S.
administration, by the full House might not only derail
Turkish-American bilateral and allied relations, but also seriously
impair the prospects of improved Turkish relations with Armenia.

Indeed, the U.S. still needs Turkey’s collaboration and cooperation in
many key areas. The importance of Turkey’s cooperation to U.S.
military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan is no less than what
it was in 2007. Besides, the U.S. will soon need the support of
Turkey, a United Nations Security Council member, for a set of
sanctions to be imposed on Iran. The billions of dollars’ worth of
American companies’ defense contracts with Turkey must have been of
precious value in view of the situation of the American economy
passing through a very serious global financial crisis.

`We expect the U.S. administration to, as of now, display more
effective efforts. Otherwise the picture ahead will not be a positive
one,’ DavutoÄ?lu said Thursday. What will be the meaning if the U.S.
administration intervenes and stops this resolution also? Will the
bullet in the revolver be removed? Will not someone in the U.S.
legislature point the same revolver at our head next spring?

I am fed up with this persistent American blackmail. Let them fire
that sole bullet and see what will happen then, see who will suffer
more.