Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Armenian Resolution-a Study In U.S. Foreign-Policy Cowardice
by Michael R. Hickok - Newsday - 12/21/2000
Posted: Saturday, December 23, 2000 10:37 am CST

Michael R. Hickok is an associate professor of Turkish and Central Asian Studies in the Future Conflict Studies Department at the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

VIEWPOINTS

AMERICA'S ALLIES have publicly congratulated Gov. George Bush on his election victory, but privately many are beginning to ask whether the new Republican foreign policy team meant what it said during the campaign. Recent congressional debate over the Armenian genocide bill underscores the gap between rhetoric and behavior in American foreign policy.

In August, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R- Ill.) told an audience of Armenian voters in Rep. Jim Rogan's California district that Hastert would do everything in his power to support Rogan's bill calling for official recognition of genocide perpetuated against the Armenians by the Ottoman government-a state that no longer exists.

Hastert used the question of genocide to gain electoral support for Rogan, a Republican congressman in danger of losing his seat (he did) for his role as House manager in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

The president recognizes the suffering the Armenia people endured during World War I in an annual memorial speech held on Armenian Remembrance Day. But the president does not use the word genocide, in part over concern for the sensitivities of America's NATO ally, Turkey.

Washington officials are aware that, while most scholars -even in Turkey-agree millions of Christian and Muslim civilians were killed deliberately in the fighting between Russian and Ottoman forces in the Caucasus and in eastern Turkey, no consensus exists over whether the acts of the governments met the modern criteria for genocide.

During the markup of the bill in the international relations committee, Congress heard opposition arguments from the White House, the State Department and collectively in a letter from serving and retired secretaries of defense and chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

They reasoned that "the potential damage to U.S. interests in a vital region dramatically outweighs, in our judgment, any acknowledgment of past atrocities during World War I and its aftermath."

Nobody denied that something tragic had occurred to the Armenians. In the end, though, fears of alienating valuable allies in Ankara and of straining Washington's security arrangements in the Mideast region obscured a vote on whether the Ottoman government had committed genocide.

There was irony as well as political expediency at work. Many who opposed the introduction of the word "genocide" in official language were the same representatives who voted in 1996 to withhold $22 million appropriated to Turkey under the Economic Support Fund until the country "acknowledges the atrocities committed against the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923." Ankara simply declined the money rather than confront the topic formally.

In the gray space between diplomacy and domestic politics, withholding funds from Turkey in an attempt to force Ankara to make a moral judgment on the actions of the Ottoman state is apparently less provocative than voting one's own conscience on how to interpret a historical event. It suggests that the words chosen by American policy makers have more meaning for those looking to Washington for leadership in an uncertain world than to the United States itself.

Turks from across the political spectrum tried to drive this point home by lobbying American officials and representatives to withdraw the Armenian genocide bill. Ankara warned that, if the bill passed, Turkey would reconsider multibillion-dollar defense contracts, support for U.S. military operations in the region and cooperation on joint energy projects. Turkish nationalists also threatened to have the Turkish parliament examine the genocide of Native Americans in the United States.

Turkish intellectuals cautioned that the Armenian lobby had succeeded in introducing references to the 1915 genocide into the official school curriculum in five states. Bowing to pressure, Hastert chose not to submit the bill to a full vote in the house.

Without denigrating Ankara's importance as an ally, Washington's response to Turkish pressure begs the question of which is the senior partner in the relationship. Ankara needs Washington's goodwill as much, if not more, given Turkey's tense relations with its neighbors.

Moreover, to suggest that the United States does not struggle with the sins of its own history is fundamentally to misunderstand America. The ethical dimension of statecraft, while hard to define, is an integral part of the strategic behavior America has always tried to cultivate.

Wendell Berry argued in "Standing by Words" that "results are usually bad when people act in social or moral isolation, and, also when, because of such isolation, they fail to act." He called for accountability in language and for a speaker to believe and act on his words.

It was politically unwise to raise the question of Armenian genocide into the national debate as a tactical maneuver in a lone congressional election. But, once Hastert decided to introduce discussion over such a morally charged and historically ambiguous issue, it was irresponsible to knuckle under to what amounted to blackmail from an ally.

The rest of the world appears to understand the accountability implicit in the language of American foreign policy. If the next administration expects to have its policies taken seriously by our enemies as well as our allies, then American leaders need to be prepared to believe and stand by the words they choose.

Related Information...

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives