Good Intentions, But Badly Directed
In most cases – and this one is no different – it’s better to leave history to the historians. Via The Washington Post, it looks as though a House panel has ignored that advice and passed a non-binding resolution to recognize the label of “Armenian genocide.” Turkey is pissed, of course, and they’ve withdrawn their ambassador to Washington.
While its goals are undoubtedly admirable ones, the panel’s decision to choose now — of all times — to go ahead with this resolution is absurd. With measures such as these, timing is everything and this is definitely not the time. America does not need to threaten our relationship with Turkey over a largely-symbolic Congressional resolution. On the contrary, policymakers in Washington need to be working to actively strengthen ties with Ankara.
There are obvious reasons for this: most importantly, Turkey has shown itself to be a critical partner in encouraging a more moderate form of Islam; and it has been a major military and strategic ally in the Middle East for many decades. Unfortunately, mostly as a result of disagreements over Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, the past few years have put increasing strain on American relations with Turkey. As Washington and Ankara have grown more distant, the Turkish government has turned away from the West and opened its arms to the Middle East. Iran and Syria have strengthened ties with Turkey, and Ankara has made overtures to Hamas in recent months. With Turkey busy “rediscovering the Middle East,” the West is finding it increasingly difficult to work with Ankara and the population is growing more radicalized and anti-Western.
This latest resolution threatens to strain the relationship even further. There is already some talk of the US being kicked out of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, as Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has spoken out quite harshly against the resolution. Meanwhile, America’s approval rating in Turkey (it was around 60% positive back in 2000) has recently dropped to 12%. I imagine that, as of today, 12% has become an overestimate.
While I’ve long argued that the United States should be at the forefront of promoting democracy and human rights, it must be done strategically. This kind of meaningless Congressional resolution isn’t likely to promote either of those ideals, but will merely harm the important relationship that we have with Turkey. I basically agree with Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino here:
“One of the reasons we opposed the resolution in the House yesterday is that the president has expressed on behalf of the American people our horror at the tragedy of 1915. But at the same time, we have national security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through Turkey. They are a very important ally in the war on terror, and we are going to continue to try to work with them. And we hope that the House does not put forward a full vote.â€
Actually, I’d take it a step further than Perino, as the danger is not just about American troop access or Turkish help in Iraq. More importantly, we don’t want to strain our relationship with Turkey because they’ve proved to be a tremendously powerful bulwark against radical Islam. The ruling AKP party, in particular, has provided the Islamic world with a peaceful, moderate form of Islam that, if encouraged, can continue to be a model for the rest of the region. If the United States jeopardizes its relationship with the AKP government, however, we will forfeit our ability to promote this trend.
Note: Photo credit goes to Ibrahim Usta/Associated Press.
14 Responses to “Good Intentions, But Badly Directed”
I agree with you completely. We need some sensible adults to clean up the messes made by the Bush Administration.
Where are they?
George S-
In fairness, the Bush administration strongly opposed and lobbied agaisnt this resolution.
The mess is clearly in the Congress’s court.
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As far as I’m concerned , this Congress should be laveled the ‘Stupid Resolutions” Congress.
1. The ‘divide Iraq’ resolution
2. The Iran’s National Gurard is a terrorist organization resolution
(Am I forgetting somethin?
And now this.
This Congress does not seem to understand the word ‘counterproductive’. Maybe definitions of the word should be distributed in Washington before another stupid resoluiton is passed.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Doma–
I completely agree with you–this is completely the fault of Congressional Democrats.
Leaping off Niagra falls in a wooden barrel while criticizing the barrel-maker for shoddy worksmanship.
It’s more like insult to injury.
So far.
With events in northern iraq heating up, this resolution is the last thing we need. Given how poorly we have treated Turkey, I really hope history does not look back at this as the straw that broke the camels back in so far as keeping things from degrading (more) in Iraq go.
I also really hope this is not an intentional way of throwing a monkey wrench at iraq. I hear Pelosi has a large Armenian constituency. And, yeah way back when, this was sidelined so its not the first time congress has tried to move on it. Lets just hope its sidelined again…
Did they do this to undercut Bush and the effort in Iraq? Don’t they realize they undermined US foreign policy even more than when Pelosi went to Syria?
[...] on the Net – has more. Be sure to head on over there and to read some of the articles there. Jeb Koogler also wrote a great post for The Moderate Voice about the resolution, calling the decision of the panel to “go ahead” with the resolution [...]
Be honest- how did Pelosi’s trip do any more harm to our ME policy which is already a disaster? Isolation hasn’t worked and every former sec of state urges engagement instead of isolation. Isolation is Cheney’s baby and Bush finally has started moving away from it. The Iraq War and Bush/Cheney bungling of it has created a dilemma for the US in the ME- not Pelosi’s trip to Syria.
I understand all of the arguments in the post and comments here and they may be right. Perhaps this is not the right battle at the right time.
The problem is, well, when do we stop and make any sort of comment based upon our values instead of whatever is most practical at the moment? Ever? It seems that you could make these sorts of arguments forever and ever. We can’t condemn Country A’s horrible history because we need their air base. We can’t condemn B because we need their oil. We can’t condemn C because they are influential with country D. And on forever. Every country fits some strategic interest. If that interest is the only thing that ever guides us, then we are essentially throwing moral principle out the window.
And we are talking about genocide here. Nothing gets more severe than that. We can all condemn the Holocaust while still working happily with modern Germany, and I could work with, say, France, if they were to pass a resolution condemning the U.S.’s history with native Americans. The bigger question might be why Turkey cannot accept this.
Paca: Bingo!
Its the type of blunder that makes me consider the dems such losers. I consider the GOP and Dems to be like Laurel & Hardy. One is an arrogant blowhard that doesn’t ever know what he is talking about and constantly getting in trouble as a result, the other is a well meaning simp.
I’m certainly not going to say Iraq is Pelosi’s fault. What I was critical of was a deliberate attempt by her and other Democrats to undermine our foreign policy (and the State Department’s authority over it), a deliberate effort to undermine the Bush administration.
http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/us-congress-destroys-us-turkey-relationship/
It’s threads like these, at Michael’s, that prove that this resolution, while nonbinding, is VERY important, so that the way people like to sweep things like this under a rug, cannot.