{"id":29687,"date":"2010-12-26T19:09:41","date_gmt":"2010-12-26T17:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=29687"},"modified":"2014-01-06T00:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T22:40:39","slug":"armenian-guerrilla-attack-in-us-congress-meets-its-waterloo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/12\/26\/armenian-guerrilla-attack-in-us-congress-meets-its-waterloo\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenian ‘Guerrilla Attack’ In US Congress Meets Its Waterloo"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h2>\n
\n
Friday, 24 December 2010 05:13 <\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\u00dcM\u0130T ENG\u0130NSOY \u2013 Hurriyet Daily News<\/span><\/p>\n

Backed by influential politicians and a major media campaign, the pro-Armenian lobby\u2019s defeat by its conventionally powerful rival in the \u201cgenocide resolution\u201d debate shows both the strengths and limits of guerrilla tactics in political battles.<\/p>\n

In their campaign to get the U.S. House of Representatives to recognize World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as \u201cgenocide,\u201d U.S. Armenians artfully utilized some of the classic strategies of \u201cguerilla warfare,\u201d capitalizing on the elements of surprise and mobility to harass a larger, traditional \u201carmy\u201d \u2013 in this case, Turkey.<\/p>\n

But the strong effort to get such a resolution passed before the last day of the current House term \u2013 and with it, the leadership of Armenian advocate Nancy Pelosi \u2013 was, in the end, unsuccessful, as the lower house of the U.S. Congress wrapped up its two-year term Wednesday without taking up the topic.<\/p>\n

The nature of many such political, and military, confrontations can be illuminated by considering the famous words of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: \u201cYou go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.\u201d In Rumsfeldian terms, the Armenians were equipped with the backing of outgoing House Speaker Pelosi, most of the Democratic big shots in the House and a full-fledge media campaign, but lacked the strong firepower needed to counter their conventionally powerful rival.<\/p>\n

That the duration between the initiative and the outcome is inversely proportional to the success of the operation is another key tenet of guerrilla warfare, and one that proved crucial in this case. The Armenians decided to launch their \u201cgenocide\u201d recognition effort at a time when their ally, Pelosi, had lost midterm congressional elections against the Republicans and would cede her post in early 2011. The latest push was a last-ditch chance to win before the Republican takeover takes place.<\/p>\n

Celebrity-led campaign<\/p>\n

The pro-resolution media assault began with a brilliant high-tech attempt by reality-TV star Kim Kardashian and rock musician Serj Tankian, both Armenian-American celebrities, to use the social-networking websites Twitter and Facebook to urge their millions of followers to demand that Pelosi schedule a vote before the year\u2019s end on the \u201cgenocide resolution\u201d bill pending in the House. Then last week, the Armenian National Committee of America, the largest and most influential U.S. Armenian group, structuralized and finalized the Armenian demand for a House floor vote.<\/p>\n

Armenia claims up to 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed in 1915 under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey denies this, saying that any deaths were the result of civil strife that erupted when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.<\/p>\n

Initially the Turks were confused; they were unable to grasp whether this was a serious and well-planned last-minute effort to get recognition for the Armenian claims of genocide or simply a way to raise funds for ANCA at the end of the year. The seriousness of the situation became clear Dec. 17, when ANCA announced that a House floor vote on the bill could be imminent.<\/p>\n

At this point, the disadvantages of the Armenian guerrilla attack became apparent. Turkey immediately mobilized its allies in Washington, mainly President Barack Obama\u2019s White House, the State Department and large defense companies. As regional power Turkey put its full weight to bear on the issue, the fight began to transform from a guerrilla attack into conventional warfare, giving Ankara the advantage.<\/p>\n

In this way, a vote was averted Dec. 17, and the Armenians began to lose their strength. This, too, follows the guerrilla-warfare principle that as the length of time between the guerrilla initiative and the intended result increases, the guerrillas\u2019 chances of success fade. Eventually the Armenian effort formally was defeated when Pelosi declined to schedule a vote on the \u201cgenocide\u201d bill Wednesday, the last day of the outgoing House.<\/p>\n

Throughout the later phases of the battle, Turkey and the Obama administration did play their parts well. Turkey refrained from blatant threats against the United States, and the White House declined to put public pressure on Pelosi. The pressure was of the behind-the-scenes variety. \u201cObama and his people deliberately stayed away from actions that would be seen as undermining Pelosi and the House\u2019s sovereignty,\u201d said one analyst in Washington.<\/p>\n

One prime concern within the U.S. administration was that the passage of the Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d bill might prompt Turkey \u2013 already a self-confident and independently acting power seeking to make its own policies in the Middle East and confronting Israel \u2013 to speed up a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d in its foreign policy, a fear one U.S. official privately confirmed.<\/p>\n

Reactions from Turkey, Armenia<\/p>\n

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto\u011flu on Thursday expressed pleasure that a resolution on recognizing Armenian claims of genocide had not been included in the official daily agenda of the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased that a development that would strike a blow to balances in the Caucasus and Turkish-American and Turkish-Armenian relations did not happen in the U.S. Congress. Common sense prevailed yesterday,\u201d Davuto\u011flu told reporters. \u201cWe thank the U.S. administration for their efforts. This incident once again proved that assessment of historical incidents by political authorities is principally wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Armenians were furious by the House\u2019s failure to vote, but pledged to fight back in the new Congress. \u201cArmenian-Americans are angered and disappointed by the failure of Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to honor their commitment to allow a bipartisan majority to vote for passage of the Armenian genocide resolution,\u201d said ANCA chairman Ken Hachikian. \u201cSpeaker Pelosi clearly had the majority, the authority and the opportunity to pass the Armenian genocide resolution, yet refused to allow a vote on this human-rights measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy that reason and common sense have prevailed,\u201d said Namik Tan, Turkey\u2019s ambassador to Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that a majority of Congress agrees with President Obama about the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship, and expect this wisdom to carry over into the next Congress so that we can avoid yet another needless round of bashing our ally Turkey,\u201d said Lincoln McCurdy, president of the Turkish Coalition of America, a U.S. Turkish group.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, 24 December 2010 05:13 \u00dcM\u0130T ENG\u0130NSOY \u2013 Hurriyet Daily News Backed by influential politicians and a major media campaign, the pro-Armenian lobby\u2019s defeat by its conventionally powerful rival in the \u201cgenocide resolution\u201d debate shows both the strengths and limits of guerrilla tactics in political battles. In their campaign to get the U.S. House of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":29688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}