The subject was Armenia. Or, more accurately, the definition of what happened to Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and Army during World War I. The position taken by the committee was the killing of a very large but uncertain number of Armenian Christians by the Muslim Ottoman troops in 1915 constituted an act of "genocide." The Turks allow that the mass murder happened but reject the applicability of the word adopted by the committee.
President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and other heavyweights of the foreign policy/national security community argued against the resolution which instructs the president to use the "G" word in describing the events of eighty-five years ago. They contended, properly, that offending Turkey was most inapposite given the crucial role the country is playing in a number of very high profile foreign matters including Iran, the Mideast peace process, north Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Mere pragmatism cut no ice particularly with the committee's chairman, Howard Berman, whose district includes a number of wealthy and well-placed individuals of Armenian ancestry. He made some soothing noises about Turkey being a "vital" ally but averred that this does not allow us "to turn a blind eye to Armenian genocide."
To say the action by the Foreign Affairs Committee outraged the Turks is to engage in a form of understatement. Ankara recalled its ambassador as the last vote was entered. Other moves are as certain as a cat coveting catnip. The Turks can prove remarkably uncooperative when motivated. And, they have a legion of ways in which to show this ability in the near term including a "no" vote on Security Council sanctions or imposing bottlenecks on US lines of supply into northern Iraq.
As an unintended consequence of the vote the warming relations between Turkey and Armenia may well be put back into the deep freeze. This would have more and more negative effect on the Armenians than upon the Turks. Apparently even this sort of pragmatic consideration is a non-starter for the sanctimonious Mr Berman and his Armenian supporters.
The Ottoman army killings of Armenian Christians--as well as Mideast Jews and Christians--in WW I constitute both a black mark on the decaying Ottoman regime and a case which demonstrates that in foreign policy as in the law, "hard cases make bad law," or at least bad choices.
The Ottoman Army had a very cavalier attitude toward the lives of civilians. This perspective became even more pronounced in effect when the civilians in question were not Muslim. The Ottoman Army and regime showed this lamentable and condemnable attitude most markedly when hard pressed by an enemy in war.
Importantly the massacres of Armenians, like those of Jews and Christians in Palestine, came as the Ottoman Army was being pushed back by foreign forces. Massacres seemed to be a sort of default response to military defeat.
This prompts the question: To what extent was the Armenian mass killing the consequence of central government policy as opposed to the actions of field commanders of the army? If it was the result of a formal government policy, an equivalent of the "final solution" as outlined at the Wansee Conference, then the use of the word "genocide" is both accurate and fully justified. If not, it follows that the word is inappropriately, even insultingly employed.
Taner Akcam, a historian specializing in Turkish history considers that it is not unfair to call the Armenian holocaust genocide as he argues in his book, A Shameful Act. Despite the careful and comprehensive nature of this work, in the end the Scots verdict must apply: Not Proven.
The central government, it is certain, did want to remove Armenians from the combat zone being persuaded they constituted a hostile Fifth Column. The Sultan and his men did not, however, either order or authorize the mass killings of civilians. Rather it appears that the killing by both acts of omission of food, shelter, and medical treatment as well as active commission happened due to the decisions and inadequacies of army commanders and local civilian satraps.
In short, removal of Armenians was a government policy. The killings were not. Arguably the officials in Istanbul should have foreseen the high probability of mass murder or, at the very least, the even higher probability of mass death resulting from the forced movement of large numbers of civilians of all ages in exceptionally harsh and primitive conditions.
They did not as is evidenced by the death toll. But, that does not constitute genocide which is understood to be defined as an act of official governmental policy. The Armenian massacres were tantamount to genocide but did not cross the line established so starkly by the Nazis at Wansee and elsewhere.
All of this historical assessment is foundation for concluding that the House Foreign Affairs Committee was wrong. Wrong historically. Wrong pragmatically. Equating what happened to the Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans with what happened to the Jews during the Nazi years as Mr Berman did is not justified.
Armenians, or those of Armenian descent, may feel better if their losses eighty-five years back are put on the same plane of moral repugnance as those suffered by Jews during the Holocaust but that is insufficient reason to put key American foreign policies at risk. The reward of feeling good is not worth the costs, very real costs, which Turkey can and will impose on the US.
The current government of Turkey it must be recalled has its roots in an Islamist political party and tilts strongly toward the pole of political Islam today. Like many Muslims--and all Islamists--the AKP as well as Messrs Erdogan and Gul are ready, willing, and able to take offense at the House Committee's action. They are equally willing to see the act as being one more salvo in the broader war of the West with Islam.
It does no good, as apologists for the committee's vote have, to note that the French government declared the acts against the Armenians to be genocide back in 2001 without any lasting ill effect upon bilateral relations. Today is not 2001. Much has changed since then--including the AKP's rise to power. The apologists are otiose at best not to acknowledge this reality.
In 2007 the House Foreign Affairs Committee took the same action. The Turks withdrew their ambassador and uttered not-so-veiled threats. President W. Bush quickly intervened with the result the full House did not pass the resolution.
It is to be hoped that President Obama can do the same. He probably has that good intention. Whether he has the guts and the clout to turn intention into effect remains to be seen, but he must know that failure to do so will buy a lot of bad road for the US and its foreign policy.
