Broken Clock Watch: Armenian Time

An old proverb notes that even a broken clock is right twice a day. Today, at least, the Bush Administration is halfway there. The President, along with representatives of the State and Defense Departments, have urged Congress to vote down H.Res 106, a bill affirming that the massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I consitute a "genocide." The bill is mainly a litany of facts about the massacres and past recognition of same, with a recommendation that U.S. policy reflect "appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning ... the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution." The administration warns that the present Turkish government's sensitivity on this point of history might endanger the nation's strategic position in the Near East if Congress insists on provoking the Turks.

As a private citizen and student of history, I do not dispute that the Turks were guilty of mass murder. As private citizens, members of the House of Representatives have the right to speak out in memory of the Armenians and against the Turks' refusal to own up as fully as many wish they would. As a nation among nations, the United States must be senstitive to the interests and biases of other nations, no matter how repugnant they seem to us. Americans ought to have learned from the Iraq debacle, when we were incited to war in part by propaganda against a "genocidal" dictator, that we ought to be careful about imposing our moral will on the rest of the world. The Iraq invasion was as much an act of moral vanity as it was a grab for resources or a social experiment. H.Res 106 is no less a piece of moral exhibitionism, even if it gets no Americans killed, and it can only add to the damage done to our international standing.

Like it or not, the United States is in competition with other powers for resources and influence around the world. Our competitors, particularly China, do not scruple about the character of leadership in countries that have resources they need. The Chinese consider their national interests first, well before any universal principles of humane government or human rights. As much of the world is still ruled by dictators or oligarchic cliques, those rulers will prefer to deal with countries that don't ask annoying or insulting questions about affairs that are none of their business. In the Turkish case, reasonable people will weigh the strategic costs of insulting the Turks against the benefit to their consciences. Modesty is called for at this low point in American diplomatic history.

I'm going to leave it to someone else to figure out the other time that Bush was right today.