WAS THIS MESS AVOIDABLE?
Jason Epstein

Hurriyet
March 11 2010
Turkey

Did a lack of decisiveness at the White House result in a missed
opportunity to end the near-regular Congressional charade of judging
the horrific events in Eastern Anatolia of nearly 100 years ago?

Not surprisingly, last week’s passage of the "Armenian genocide"
resolution by a panel in the House of Representatives caused Turks
across the political spectrum to express their outrage. The Foreign
Ministry recalled envoy Namık Tan for consultations, less than two
weeks after he arrived in Washington as the new ambassador. A senior
ministry official predicted that any hope of near-term progress on
the Turkey-Armenia Protocols was gone.

"So much for the new era of U.S. appreciation for the sensitivities
and cultural nuances of America’s allies," a Wall Street Journal
editorial quipped.

Interestingly, the resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs
Committee by only a single vote, 23-22. Not only was the outcome
closer than an identical one from two years ago (27-21), but Chairman
Howard Berman (D-California) held the vote open for an astonishing
90 minutes in order to ensure that he had just enough votes to keep
the measure from going down in flames.

As both a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly
called the events of 1915 a "genocide." However, President Obama has
not uttered the offending term, even when addressing the Turkish
Parliament 11 months ago. Moreover, in his presidential message
of April 24, the date that the American government recognizes the
Armenian deaths, the President again demurred. All indications now
are that his message next month will also not include the phrase. For
acting with such restraint, he deserves significant credit.

However, neither he nor his advisors immediately commented on the
resolution, which had been re-introduced in both houses of Congress
one year ago.

One week before the scheduled vote, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
hinted that the State Department still opposed to the resolution,
although she did not use explicit language.

Two days before the vote, the National Security Council spokesman
had no comment as to whether the White House would issue a statement,
let alone actively lobby against the resolution.

The night before the vote, Clinton telephoned Chairman Berman, urging
him to call it off, to no avail.

One day after the vote, a senior unnamed White House official told
a Washington Post reporter that an agreement had been reached with
Congressional leaders to ensure that the full body will not vote on
the resolution.

No wonder that an American journalist covering the issue described
the administration’s position as "addled."

A defeat of the resolution, which the Washington Post editorial board
once described as "worse than irrelevant," would have been nothing
short of devastating for the Armenian-American activists pushing hard
on this issue. Additionally, it would have made clear that Congress
was not interested in peddling a measure that unabashedly seeks to
undermine, not just the strategic relationship between the United
States and Turkey, but eviscerate any possibility of reconciliation
between Turkey and Armenia.

Furthermore, Washington has not addressed one of the principal barriers
to the successful implementation of the Turkey-Armenia Protocols:
Azerbaijan’s concern that the Armenian seizure of its territory is
being ignored. After all, the closing of the border between Turkey
and Armenia in 1993 was a result of the conflict over the Armenian
occupation of Karabakh and surrounding territory, not the genocide
claims.

Azerbaijan is a pro-Western country, despite being sandwiched
between Russia and Iran, and has sent soldiers to Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Kosovo at the request of the United States and NATO. A major
hydrocarbon producer, Azerbaijan may one day end Europe’s addiction
to the current Russian energy monopoly with the Nabucco natural gas
pipeline project. Incredibly, the White House has not appeared too
interested in Azerbaijan’s strategic importance: on the one hand, it
has reportedly pressured Ankara to pursue parliamentary ratification;
on the other, it has not even bothered to send up the name of its
next ambassador to Baku to the Senate for confirmation, eight months
after the previous envoy departed.

Since man has yet to figure out a way to turn back time, we will
never know if a more strident effort from the White House against the
Armenian resolution would have persuaded a single Foreign Affairs
Committee member to switch their vote from "aye" to "nay," thereby
frightening its supporters, both in Congress and the grassroots,
from pushing another such vote for a decade or more.

What is known is that the committee’s action did additional harm
to America’s image in Turkey and Azerbaijan, an outcome that surely
was not desired by an administration looking to repair Washington’s
relations in Muslim capitals.

* Jason Epstein is President of Southfive Strategies, LLC, in
Washington, D.C. He may be reached via e-mail at feedback@southfive.com