Friday, October 12, 2007

More on Turkey

So why are the Democrats pushing the Armenian genocide resolution now? My impression had been that it was simple interest group politics. Armenian groups in the U.S. saw an opportunity with a Democratic majority, so they pushed it, and the Democrats were happy to please a constituent group.

But a colleague of mine suggests a much more intriguing motive. As he sees it, the Democrats are actually trying to foment a crisis with Turkey, which would force Turkey to cut off support for our actions in Iraq. This is actually a round-about way of forcing an end to the Iraq war.

What do you think?

In other news, I spoke with a Turkish colleague here, and he was pretty annoyed with the idea of the resolution. He says he has no problem admitting Turkey's culpability or calling it a genocide. He just doesn't feel like being lectured by the United States right now.

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