OBAMA’S TOUGH CHOICE

Huffington Post
yan/obamas-tough-choice_b_548180.html
April 22 2010

On April 24 every year the U.S. President addresses the American
people and the world to express solidarity with those who pay tribute
to the 1915 genocide victims when 1.5 million Armenians were destroyed
in the Ottoman Empire.

Every presidential candidate promises to the U.S. Armenian community
that when he comes to office he will recognize the fact of the genocide
but neither President Clinton, nor Bush, nor President Obama have
fulfilled their election pledges yet. The last President to keep his
word on this was President Reagan who explicitly recognized Armenian
Genocide in 1981.

Last year, when on a trip to Ankara in April, President Obama,
answering the question on Armenian-Turkish relations, did not use the
word ‘genocide’ but said that his views on the issue had not changed
since his election campaign. Then, he said "America deserves a leader
who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide," and more. To
avoid using the word genocide in the U.S.

President’s address on April 24, 2009 the U.S. administration had asked
the President of Armenia to publicly announce on the eve of that date
that some progress had been made in the negotiations with Turkey,
and two protocols had been initialed that were aimed at normalizing
the Armenian-Turkish relations.

The Armenian leadership agreed to do that despite the anticipation
of serious criticism on the part of the Diaspora and especially the
Armenian community in the United States who thought that this played
into the hands of the Turks and helped Obama to save face and not to
use the word ‘genocide’ in his speech on April 24, the reason being
that he did not want to impede the normalization process in the
relations between Armenia and Turkey. Instead, he used an Armenian
language term for the genocide. After announcing the news regarding
the protocols right before the genocide memorial date, the Armenian
leadership received a statement from the U.S. Department of State
to the effect that the parties should sign the protocols without any
preconditions and within a reasonable time frame. By virtue of this
action Washington, to a large extent, assumed the responsibility of
being the guarantor of signing and ratification of these protocols.

This was followed by the signing of the protocols in Zurich by the
foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia, with the active mediation
of U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton.

The Turkish side, however, kept putting forward new conditions
for the ratification, thus protracting the process and using the
negotiations with Armenia to block the passing of the resolution by
U.S. Congress denouncing the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire and recognition of the genocide by other states.

Such conduct on the part of the Turkish side left Armenia no choice
under the circumstances but suspend further proceedings of the
protocols placing the full responsibility for frustrating the talks
on Turkey. Armenia formally did so today. It is now up to Turkey to
settle things with the United States, France, European Union and
Russia regarding the issue since the foreign ministers of France,
the U.S. and Russia, as well as the representative of the EU took
part in the protocol signing process in Zurich.

In order to maintain the negotiations process, the President of
Armenia was invited to participate in the Nuclear Security Summit
in Washington, DC on April 12-13, and within the framework of the
Summit he had meetings with the Prime Minister of Turkey, President
Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

The Turkish side made the ratification of the protocols contingent
on the progress in the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and
on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Turkey, which is not due
until 2011. Such conduct on the part of Turkey runs contrary to the
very essence of the protocols and the statement of the U.S. Department
of State on normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations without any
preconditions and within a reasonable time frame.

Washington was not able to convince Ankara to comply with its
obligations to ratify the protocols. It is just as unlikely to be
able to keep Armenia in this negotiations process so as to have a
chance for President Obama to save face this year again, in case on
April 24 he does not use the word ‘genocide’ in his address.

The Armenian side could stay in the negotiations for a while longer
even without the ratification of the protocols by the Turkish
Parliament if the President of the United States used the word
‘genocide’ in his address on April 24. In that case neither the
Diaspora nor the Armenian political circles in the opposition would be
able to accuse the President of Armenia of his staying in the process,
in fact, assisting the Turkish diplomacy and blocking the process of
recognizing the genocide by the U.S. administration and Congress.

The Armenian side could stay in the negotiations process given the
certainty that this year the Congress would pass a resolution on the
genocide of Armenians which has already gone through the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. It might stay
in this process if there is any progress in the position of the
mediators on the Nagorny Karabakh settlement issue and clarification
of the issue of its status. Without some positive results on a wide
range of issues in the Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azeri relations,
it will be difficult for the Armenian leadership to remain in this
process without causing itself political damage.

In my view, as a result of the Armenian withdrawal from the process
it is Turkey who will be the biggest loser, because yet again the
Turkish side will show the world that it is not ready to recognize
the genocide and apologize to the Armenian people; furthermore,
it is not even ready to agree to a normalization of relations, thus
presenting itself as a dangerous neighbor for Armenia and unreliable
partner for all the countries that participated in the drafting and
signing of the protocols.

Obviously, not only Obama but also the United States will sustain
serious blows to their reputation since Washington acted as an
unbiased mediator and, even more, gave the world reasons to believe
that he had sufficient resources to convince Turkey to sign as well
as ratify the protocols.

On April 24 the U.S. President is to deliver another address with
regard to the 95th anniversary of the genocide of Armenians. He would
do well if he came up with some language not to alienate the U.S.

Armenian community and the Armenian people either from him personally
or from his party on the eve of midterm elections to Congress, and
here he should take into account certain capabilities of the Armenian
lobby and the Armenian constituency.

Thus, the U.S. President is facing a difficult choice. If he
recognized the genocide he would avoid challenges to his credibility,
and gain the support of the Armenian-American community; he would also
perform a moral duty as President Reagan did and which, incidentally,
has already been done by such states as France, Germany, Russia and
others. At the same time, that would create tensions in the relations
with Turkey which is a NATO ally and a strategic partner. Indeed,
Turkey is still viewed as such mechanically by many in Washington.

However, only those totally divorced from politics cannot see that
Turkey’s recent policy on all major internal and external issues has
been shifting. Turkey has been moving from a secular state toward an
Islamic state. Moreover, it is pursuing the ambitions to re-instate
its role as a leader of a neo-Ottoman world and as the leader of all
Islamic states. Internally, the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are
rapidly losing their influence as the main guarantors of Turkey as a
secular state. In the external policy, Erdogan has repeatedly subjected
Israel to verbal accusations and made statements on protecting Iran
from tougher U.S. sanctions in the UN Security Council. If this rapid
slide of the Turkish policy continues in the future, then we may not
find too unrealistic the strategic forecast of George Friedman, founder
of STRATFOR, in his book "The Next 100 Years", on the inevitability
of a full-scale war between the neo-Ottoman Turkey and the United
States as early as the middle of this century.

In view of all these circumstances, the U.S. President will be
presented with a tough choice that is really not too difficult.