The Cutting Edge

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, the recent passage of the resolution labeling as genocide the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by a panel in the House of Representatives caused Turks across the political spectrum to express their outrage. The Foreign Ministry recalled envoy Namik 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, a bold attempt to by the two governments to resolve contentious bilateral and regional issues, was gone. “So much for the new era of US 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 commented on the resolution until the very last minute, even though it had been re-introduced in both houses of Congress over 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 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 purportedly looking to repair Washington’s relations in Muslim capitals.

Cutting Edge commentator Jason Epstein is President of Southfive Strategies, LLC, in Washington, DC. He may be reached via e-mail at feedback@southfive.com. Epstein in the past has been a registered agent and consultant for Turkish interests.