The U.S. House of Representatives resurrected a nearly 100-year-old genocide controversy with a vote on Thursday.
The House Foreign Affairs committee passed, by a narrow 23-22 vote, a non-binding resolution recognizing the mass killings of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as genocide. By passing the resolution, the committee is calling upon Congress to formally recognize the genocide by passing its own binding law.
The Turkish government harshly condemned the committee’s actions. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed the resolution will “damage bilateral relations between countries, their interests, and their visions for the future.” The Turkish government also recalled its ambassador to the United States for consultations soon after the House committee passed the resolution.
The Obama administration also denounced the resolution. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the administration “strongly opposes the resolution … and will work very hard to make sure it does not go to the House floor.” Interestingly, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Clinton, all during their terms as senator, urged the Bush administration to recognize the genocide.
The administration’s opposition to the bill is linked to American foreign policy interests. The military has a base in Incirlik, Turkey, which it has operated since the 1950s. The airbase has been used as a launch point for reconnaissance flights when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, as well as current military actions in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Turkey is also a strategic partner with the United States in the War on Terror and the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Obama has recently prodded Turkey and Armenia into signing an agreement to establish diplomatic relations and open their respective borders to each other. Ironically, the day before the House committee passed the resolution in question, Obama called the Turkish prime minister and praised his efforts to normalize relations with Armenia.
The disputed genocide occurred during World War I and in its aftermath, when the Ottoman Empire was still in existence and Armenia was not yet a sovereign state. The Ottomans entered the war in 1915, joining the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and began attacking Russia. Armenians living in Turkey sympathized with Russia, due to their shared Eastern Orthodox religion and Slavic culture. Several volunteer Armenian army battalions actually fought alongside Russian soldiers during a counter-offensive against the Ottomans in the Caucasus region. In response, the Ottoman government arrested Armenian political and intellectual leaders, and in May 1915, it ordered the military to forcibly deport all Armenian citizens from the country. More than one million Armenians were uprooted from their homes and marched into the Arabian desert. The Armenians were treated inhumanely by their Turkish escorts, often being denied food, shelter, and rest. Soldiers would periodically massacre groups of Armenians and leave their bodies behind to rot in the desert. The deportation ended with the Central Powers’ defeat in World War I and the subsequent collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey, the modern successor state to the Ottoman Empire, has continuously denied that the Armenian genocide ever occurred. According to the Turkish government, Armenian casualties can be linked to sectarian violence between Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians, unintentional deaths during the forced deportation process, and a famine that occurred in Turkey during the war. The government disputes the benchmark number of 1.5 million Armenian deaths, claiming that roughly 500,000 Armenians reached their destination in Damascus and the Euphrates River valley. Under current Turkish law, citizens can be arrested and tried for “insulting Turkey” if they recognize the genocide.
The formal definition for genocide, according to a 1948 U.N. convention, is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” Turkey alleges that the Ottoman government only intended to deport the Armenians, while its detractors claim that their actions were actually extermination disguised as deportation. Twenty countries, as well as 42 U.S. states, have recognized the Armenian genocide. In the academic world, denial of the genocide is the minority view, with few historians outside of Turkey refusing to recognize the time of absolute terror. In politics, many countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, acknowledge that atrocities took place but refuse to label them as genocide for fear of reprisals from their Turkish allies.
The recent House committee resolution puts the Obama administration in the awkward position of choosing between moral obligations and political interests. As a presidential candidate, Obama stated that, “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.” However, now Obama is confronted with an enraged Turkish government on which the United States relies heavily for support in the War on Terror. Obama’s idealism has been tested, and he has passed on the opportunity to change the Bush administration’s official denial of the genocide. It seems that in the world of politics, whether one is Republican or Democrat, national interest still trumps morality.
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