The presidential candidates and the Armenian Genocide resolution

Turkey is threatening to invade Iraq and cut commercial ties with the United States in retaliation of the House Foreign Affairs Committee passing a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. And it looks like House members are giving in to this blatant blackmail instead of seeing that Turkish threats to cut off help for the Iraq War is just further proof that something is deeply perverted in the way Turkey is dealing with its past. (Update: The NYT is also on to the story now, reporting that a dozen representatives withdrew their co-sponsorship in the last 24 hours alone! At this rate it is unlikely Pelosi will even call a vote at all).

If the vote does take place as it is planned to, the debate could spill over to the presidential campaign, since so many candidates would have to vote on this in Congress. A survey of the presidential field - and quick phone calls to the congressional offices of all of those sitting on Capitol Hill - shows that candidates are staying away from this explosive issue, though most of them have a clear stance. The only aide to have a precise answer to my question was Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and he voted "nay" last Wednesday. Asked for an explanation, his aide told me, "The current government is not responsible for what happened a hundred years ago, pretty much." Then why was he originally a co-sponsor of the bill? The House database indicates that Tancredo jumped on board on April 19th - and suddenly changed his mind on June 27th. Did he have a sudden revelation about historical responsibility during those two months?

At least Tancredo has an official statement about the matter. Ron Paul, also a member of the committee, did not take part in the vote, and his office had nothing to tell me about his stance on H. R. 106.

The two other House members running for president - Republican Duncan Hunter and Democrat Dennis Kucinich - are both co-sponsors of the resolution. But that apparently does not mean anything, as Jim McDermott is still on the list. Asked whether the congressmen stood by their commitments, neither of their offices could provide me with an answer. Kucinich's aide said they "could not comment on the matter" of a future vote, and Hunter's was not aware of anything relating to H. R. 106. It was rather surprising to find that they could not even respond that co-sponsoring a bill was a measure of support and indicate that their future vote would be in favor.

In the Senate, three of the presidential candidates are co-sponsoring the equivalent senatorial bill: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and Sam Brownback (24 out of 32 of the co-sponsors are Democrats). But calls to their Senate offices also provided me very little information as to whether these three would stay committed to the bill and whether they would take active measures to push for it - which is unfortunately as telling as if they had given me a precise answer.

I obtained a similar result with the other senatorial offices, but at least past statements from the candidates can give us an idea of where they stand on the issue. Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and thus the senator who would have to push this measure through, has supported similar bills in the past. In fact, he co-sponsored Senate Resolution 320 in 2006 in the 109th Congress. He also released a statement this past April 24th, the day of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. John McCain, on the other hand, has explicitly rejected use of word genocide - consistently referring to 1915 as "massacres" - and has voted against similar bills in the past.

And then there is Barack Obama, who seems guilty of massive triangulation. He has repeatedly acknowledged that what took place was a genocide and accused the Turkish government of denial, most famously at a videotaped conference on April 12th. But asked whether this means he would vote in favor of a recognition resolution, Obama stalled: "I think the fact that I am on the Foreign Affairs Committee means that we maybe more sensible to some of the internal dynamics diplomatically around the issue."

One thing that is too certain, unfortunately, is that whoever the next president is will oppose any attempt to recognize the genocide. Hillary Clinton might be supporting the resolution now, but her husband's Administration was the biggest obstacle to the resolution's late 1990s version. And George Bush's reversal shows how seriously the executive branch takes the Turkish threats.

In 2000, Governor Bush wrote a public letter pledging to finally bring the US to full recognition of what happened in 1915. "The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity," he wrote. "If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."

Last week, President Bush was reduced to begging Congress to reject H.R. 106. "This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings," he argued, avoiding the G-word just as he has in the past seven years. But with Turkey's stunning blackmail over a merely symbolic bill extending as far as threatening to invade northern Iraq, it is time for Congress to call their bluff.

This post was first posted on the Huffington Post's Off the Bus. The full article is available here.