Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Don't Mix!

The Democrats in Congress seem hell-bent on proving one more time that one very important lesson of history still holds true. Playing domestic politics with an important foreign policy consideration is a very, very bad idea--no matter how well it may play with the folks back home.

House majority leader Steny Hoyer has blown off the serious and well founded objections of SecDef Gates and SecStat Rice to the passage of a resolution declaring the killing of Armenians by the Turkish military between 1915 and 1923 as "genocide." Mr Hoyer (who has no direct experience with foreign policy to the Geek's knowledge) dismissed the warnings of Gates and Rice regarding serious damage to US national security interests as a mere "blip."

Get a grip, Mr Hoyer!

This is a hot button, maybe the hot button issue with the Turks both in government and on the street. Passage of this ill-considered feel-good measure would injure the US relations with Turkey not only today but into the future. Congress should bear in mind just how critical Turkey has been and will continue to be in US policy calculations in the region.

Congress should also keep in mind just how poorly the US has treated Turkey over the years. Years ago we tilted against Turkey in the conflict with Greece over Cyprus. More recently we have not shown anything approximating even-handedness as the conflict has re-emerged now centering on Cypriot development of off-shore oil fields.

We have leaned heavily on the Turks not to pursue an oil and gas pipeline development project with Tehran. We have interfered with Turkey's legitimate right to self-defense against the Kurdish insurgent group, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). We got ourselves in a totally unnecessary snit over Ankara's unwillingness to allow us to use Turkish bases for a part of of our 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Overall, it is not surprising that in a recent international poll, Turks showed the lowest approval rate of the United States of all countries--something on the order of nine percent. It is not surprising that the same poll showed a significant number of Turks believed that the US was cranking up an invasion directed against them!

We need Turkey as a close, willing, and effective partner in the Second Cold War--the struggle against Islamism. We need Turkey as a close, willing, and effective partner in our effort to clean up our mess in Iraq and leave a functioning state in our wake as we leave. We even need to look to Turkey as the only likely locus for a true Islamic reformation--a melding of timeless Islam with the realities of the world today and into the future.

There is a lot more at stake in Turkey than merely access to our bases. There is a lot more at stake in Turkey than the immediate course of events in Iraq, or even in the region. Turkey is a key player in most of our concerns throughout the Mideast and Islamic areas.

Politicians may only want to keep the folks back home happy and in a voting mood. That's how the word bunk, deriving from the earlier bunkum, entered the American dictionary. One hundred fifty or so years ago there was a congresswallah from North Carolina who made speeches about one absurdity after another and who spoke in opposition to measures for which he voted. When asked why, the man answered, "It's for the folks in Buncomb county."

Bunk--that's a good word for the fancy speeches of those who support the counterproductive, nationally self-destructive, feel-good resolution on Armenian genocide. Rather than voting for these critters who wish to apply a word that has become dangerously overused in recent years, the people back home in the various "Buncomb counties" of this country should toss the gripless, brain-dead purported representatives out.

Of course that won't happen. Bunkum always sells well. It helps on election day. And, it only hurts our nation's interests and future.

So, why worry?