A Bullet Dodged: House Leadership, Clinton Administration To Be Commended for Withdrawing Anti-Turkey Resolution

(Washington, D.C.): In the face of mounting opposition from the national security community and an 11th hour, personal appeal from President Clinton yesterday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) canceled a scheduled vote on a resolution that would have condemned the Turkish for the “genocide” of Armenians from 1915-1923. Speaker Hastert is to be commended, as are President Clinton and his senior subordinates, for their appreciation of the disastrous effect such a resolution could have had at a critical time for U.S. foreign policy in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.

Special appreciation should be expressed to Rep. Jim Rogan (R-CA), a courageous and valued legislator, whose constituency is the most heavily Armenian-American in the Nation. He has been targeted by Mr. Clinton and other Democrats for defeat this fall due to his leading role in the Clinton impeachment battle. Rep. Rogan has valiantly represented his constituents and indisputably was responsible for putting the Armenian genocide resolution on the map in a way that no legislator has done before. In the end, however, Mr. Rogan agreed to place the larger national interests first, permitting Speaker Hastert to vitiate his commitment to bring the issue to a vote before the election, and both men should be applauded for doing so.

What Was at Stake

As the Center noted in a 21 September Decision Brief, these larger interests include the following:

If the full House of Representatives approves [the then-pending] “Armenian genocide” resolution…U.S. relations with Turkey will suffer serious — and possibly irreparable — harm. Turkey is one of the most strategically important nations on the planet, situated at the cross-roads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with important — and generally very complex — ties to each. With the Cold War’s passing and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turkey is surrounded by potential instability and conflict, a situation that shows no sign of change in the foreseeable future.

To make matters worse, such a rupture [in U.S.-Turkish relations] would come at a particularly unpropitious time. For instance, Saddam Hussein is emerging once again as a mortal threat to his neighbors and Israel. Uncertainties about the future course of pivotal Persian Gulf states like Iran and Saudi Arabia are exacerbating concerns about future oil shocks and their economic consequences. And Israel may be on the brink of a new outbreak of violence as the Palestinians prepare to liberate the rest of “Palestine” — with or without another fraudulent “peace agreement.”

A stable, secure Turkey closely tied to the West is an indispensable counterweight to these and a number of other worrisome developments. It behooves the House Republican leadership, therefore, to find ways to secure a renewed mandate without jeopardizing vital national interests.

The Bottom Line

If Congress does decide at some future point to consider the esoteric question of whether the treatment early in the 20th Century of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide, it is to be hoped that it will take testimony from skeptical experts in the field, like Princeton’s Dr. Bernard Lewis, as well as proponents of Rep. Rogan’s resolution. In the meantime, the Center for Security Policy is gratified that its cautions against taking up this matter, in a less balanced way and at this volatile juncture, have been heeded.