Ottoman Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians in the early twentieth century, some 90 years ago. The evidence is undeniable, but Turkey continues to deny it. And so the latest fashion trend among the PC crowd has been to urge world governments to condemn the nine-decade-old genocide. This has, in turn, met with some resistance.

Can a nonbinding congressional resolution really matter? Most are ignored by everyone except the special interests they are usually directed at. Even the House's recent resolution on Iraq was dismissed by both President Bush and Democratic antiwar leader John Murtha. Yet a vote expected next month on a nonbinding House resolution describing a "genocide" in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1915 has the potential to explode U.S. relations with Turkey, sway the outcome of upcoming Turkish elections and spill over into several other strategic American interests, including Iraq and Iran.

So, yes: The Armenian Genocide Resolution sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff does matter, logically or not. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul spent several days in Washington last month lobbying against it, though the Turkish-American agenda is chockablock with seemingly more important issues. Friends of Turkey in Washington, from American Jewish organizations to foreign policy satraps, are working the Hill; so is the Bush team. On the other side is the well-organized and affluent Armenian American community, 1.4 million strong, and some powerful friends -- including the new House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Here is a debate that could occur only in Washington -- a bizarre mix of frivolity and moral seriousness, of constituent pandering, far-flung history and front-line foreign policy. And that's just on the American side; in Turkey there is the painful struggle of a deeply nationalist society to come to terms with its past, and in the process become more of the Western democracy it wants to be.

I'm sorry, but this is a resolution that should not be. Not because the Armenian genocide did not happen, for it undeniably did. Not because it was not serious or because we might offend an ally, because the first is false and the second is irrelevant. Rather, it is not the place of political bodies to be setting historical judgments in stone. That is what has happened in Turkey, where one can be punished for conceding that the horrors done to the Armenians by Turks ever happened -- and in France, where denying they happened is punishable by law. The problem is that by taking the matter out of the hands of historians establishes an orthodoxy that is hard to overcome as new evidence come to light -- and, indeed can make advocating against the orthodoxy a crime, silencing professionals in the field.

That the Turkish genocide committed against the Armenians happened is clearly established historical fact. That it remains a blot on the history of the Turkish people and the world cannot be denied by any honest observer. But the proper place for judging this long-ago crime is not Congress, for the events have long since passed from current events that can be remedied into the mists of history.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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