The Armenian genocide resolution

Poster by Ruben Malayan on the Armenian genocide

Like Tankwoman, I'm a bit puzzled by the timing of Congress on the Armenian resolution. The Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is certainly an important event to understand. (I must admit I'm not current on the nuances of what counts as genocide and what not. A truly grim subject, important though it unquestionably is. But in my understanding, that event counts as one.)

Robert Fisk includes a chapter called "The First Holocaust" about the Armeniain genocide - the term Fisk uses - in his book The Great War for Civilisation (2005).

Juan Cole was also puzzled over the timing of the resolution on the Armenian genocide, since so far as I'm aware it has no practical effects in itself. Of course, "pure" symbolism can sometimes generate practical consequences, as we see in this case. Cole writes in Who Lost Turkey? 10/12/07 at his Informed Comment blog:

The ... US Congress abruptly condemned modern Kemalist Turkey for the Armenian genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire, provoking Ankara to withdraw its ambassador from Washington. I have long held that Turkey should acknowledge the genocide, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more hundreds of thousands. The Turkish government could then point out that it was committed by a tyrannical and oppressive government - the Ottoman Empire - against which the Kemalists also fought a long and determined war to establish a modern republic. I can't understand Ankara's unwillingness to distance itself from a predecessor it doesn't even think well of - the junta of Enver Pasha and the later pusillanimity of the sultan (the capital is in Ankara and not Istanbul in part for this very reason!)

But no dispassionate observer could avoid the conclusion that the Congressional vote condemning Turkey came at a most inopportune time for US-Turkish diplomacy, at a time when Turks were already raw from watching the US upset all the apple carts in their neighborhood, unleash existential threats against them, cause the rise of Salafi radicalism next door, coddle terrorists killing them, coddle the separatist KRG, and strengthen the Shiite ayatollahs on their borders.

It's worth noting, as Cole does, "The Congressional vote came despite the discomfort of elements of the Israel lobby with recognizing the mass killing of Armenians as a genocide."

Deborah Lipstadt also pointed out this wrinkle at her History on Trial blog, House Foreign Affairs Committee passes Armenian Genocide resolution 10/10/07:

So here's my question: if the "Jewish lobby" controls American foreign policy and many Jewish organizations, especially Abe Foxman and the ADL, opposed this resolution because of their fears about the welfare of the Turkish Jewish community and their appreciation of Turkey's relations with Israel... HOW COME THIS PASSED????

Lipstadt takes a far more dismissive view of the Mearsheimer-Walt criticism of the "Israel lobby" and also of Jimmy Carter's most recent book on the Israel-Palestine conflict than I do. But her point is important to note. Israel has kept its distance from formal condemnations of the Armenian genocide out of deference to their alliance with Turkey. (See The Israeli Government's Genocide Politics by Gershom Gorenberg American Prospect Online 09/06/07.)

Cole expands on the point in his post. He also gives a good summary of how the Bush administration's policies in Iraq have generally not been beneficial from Turkey's point of view.

Maybe there's no ideal time for passing a resolution like this one. But given the fact that the immediate fate of Iraq, and the American soldiers there, hangs in significant part on Turkey's forbearance in expanding this war into a regional conflict, the timing may have been particularly bad as a practical matter. I had a similar reaction to that of Tankwoman's: "Did they not read the memo about the on-going conflict between Turkey and the Kurds, do they not care about the probable escalation of the Iraq conflict? ... They've waited 98 years already, what’s a few more?" Especially since it's a non-binding resolution.

Or, as Nicholas von Hoffman puts it in Whose Genocide Counts? The Nation Online 10/11/07, "Do you think that the House Foreign Affairs Committee might, after it has righted any number of ancient wrongs, look into what the Sam Hill is going on now?"

See also:

In Turkey, taboo lifts over past treatment of Armenians by Yigal Schleifer Christian Science Monitor 03/17/05

Meeting with Turkish Parliamentarians 04/16/07 (audio), Center for Strategic and International Security (CSIS)

The Burden of Memory by Meline Toumani The Nation 09/20/04

Armenians seek place in museum by Christopher Reynolds Los Angeles Times 02/03/03

Tags: armenian genocide, first world war, turkey, world war one