PATIENCE REQUIRED
Winston-Salem Journal, NC
Oct 18 2007
Winston-Salem Journal
There are good reasons that the Founding Fathers gave control of
foreign diplomacy to the executive branch, not the legislative. The
situation regarding a U.S. House resolution condemning Turkey for
"genocide" against the Armenian people in 1915 is an example of one
of those good reasons.
Diplomacy is a gentle art, one not always deftly performed by the
current administration. In officially branding the deaths of 1.5
million Armenians during World War I as genocide, however, a House
committee has landed at a delicate spot with all of the grace of
an elephant.
This matter requires gentle, patient hands. Turkey is sensitive on
this issue and makes it a crime to openly describe the 1915 events
as genocide. But the country is slowly moving toward openness on
the matter. A commission is in place to study it, and long-sealed
records have been opened, The New York Times reports. Turkish reform
advocates now fear that the House action has excited Turkish passions
to the point where Turkey will retreat from these advances.
The United States should be doing nothing to disturb the gradual
opening of Turkish society. The administration was letting the Turks
handle this on their own. Now, the House committee has injected itself
and confronted all representatives with a difficult dilemma:
They can support the resolution, label as genocide what was a horrible
slaughter of innocent people, and both anger our allies in Turkey
and put our troops in Iraq at risk. Or they can reject that label –
either through a floor vote or by letting the measure die quietly –
and make it appear that the United States is callous to the deaths.
The third and most sensible option, quietly working with Turkey to
open its society to a full discussion of these deaths, has been taken
off the table, at least temporarily.
In the wake of the administration’s appeals to common sense, a good
many House members have withdrawn support for the measure, and it
may never come to a floor vote. That’s the least distasteful option
available right now.
This episode should teach us a lesson: Congress has a role in
overseeing foreign diplomacy, not in conducting it.