COMMENTARY: SENATOR BOXER’S SHORTCOMING
By William A. Bairamian
2010/08/13 | 16:32
Feature Stories politics
The decision of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to delay the
Bryza vote should not be welcomed by the Armenian-American community.
It should be no surprise that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) urged the
committee to delay the confirmation vote for Matthew Bryza, who has
been nominated by President Obama to serve as United States Ambassador
to Azerbaijan. It must have been very clear to Sen. Boxer, and the
other members of the committee, that the Armenian-American community
strongly opposed the nomination of Mr. Bryza to the top American
diplomatic post in Azerbaijan. Despite her indubitable awareness of
this, she opted to request a delay of the vote rather than placing
a hold on his nomination, which she would have had the ability to do.
The evidence showing that Mr. Bryza would not be a fair arbiter
of American diplomatic objectives in the region was plain and
straightforward. As the American Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, he
consistently showed a pro-Azeri bias in his approach to the process,
including his unfortunately prolonged silence on the destruction
of the thousand year-old Armenian cemetery in Julfa, located in the
Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan.
Additionally, contrary to his claim about leading separate professional
and personal lives, he and his wife, Zeyno Baran, have regularly
collaborated with regard to issues in the South Caucasus. If that
weren’t enough, one of the groomsmen at his wedding was the foreign
minister of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov.
These facts were reported by the press, with extensive coverage by
Asbarez, and all the information was at Sen. Boxer’s disposal.
Curiously, though, she opted to delay the vote rather than place a
hold on the nomination. In any other instance, with such an abundance
of conflicts of interest, any honest Senator would reject such a
nomination outright. But it’s an election year.
And, of course, we shouldn’t forget that Sen. Boxer is up for
reelection in the fall and if she were to place a hold on an
ambassadorial candidate, she would be going against an incumbent
democratic president. Thus, she likely estimated that it would be
most prudent to delay the vote until the early fall, when, being
closer to Election Day, she can better assess the influence the large
Armenian-American vote will have in her reelection bid.
Senator Boxer’s non-committal attitude toward this heavyweight
constituency in California is reminiscent of President Obama’s rhetoric
without action. Her unwillingness to make the right decision in light
of a plethora of evidence and to instead toy with the Armenian-American
community by offering an insufficient solution should be unacceptable
to voters concerned with having a fair and balanced American foreign
policy in the increasingly sensitive South Caucasus region.
It has come time for Armenian-Americans to expect more than just
words and promises in exchange for their votes and money. Elected
officials have the power to take substantive action – so let them.
William Bairamian is a former staffer of the Hillary Clinton
Presidential Campaign and was the National Field Director of Armenians
for Obama. He holds a graduate degree from Columbia University’s
School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where he emphasized
in international security policy.
From: A. Papazian
http://hetq.am/en/politics/37571/