NYC Letter: His Word Is His Bond -- Armenian Genocide

Day 1,186 of CHOPE

Politicians do not take a stand on everything. But when they do, they do so from a position based on principles, the facts of the matter, and conviction. Before they step up to grip the podium, before they dial the phone for the talk-radio interview, before they ask someone to lick that stamp for the envelope with their NYT op-ed, before they do any of that, they have thought hard and long about going before the public and making their case. Is it because they want to ensure their message polls well with voters? No, you depressing cynic.

It is because the politician's word is his bond.

As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term "genocide" to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Obama,
then-Senator and presidential hopeful, recognizing
the Armenian genocide in his future presidency
January 19, 2008 (Armenian Reporter)

If elected Mr. Obama will do the right thing. Mr. Obama is elected.

OBAMA AGAIN BREAKS PROMISE
TO COMMEMORATE ARMENIAN 'GENOCIDE'

April 24, 2012 (ABC News) - One day after paying a solemn visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, President Barack Obama on Tuesday called the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1915 "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century" but again broke a 2008 campaign promise to label the tragedy "genocide."

... Turkey, a NATO member, fiercely disputes the genocide charge, and has warned that formal U.S. steps to use the term will hamper relations. Turkey's Ambassador to Washington Namik Tan sharply criticized a similar statement from Obama in 2011, taking to Twitter to denounce it as inaccurate, flawed, and one-sided.

The issue is also a powerful one for Armenian Americans. "The Armenian Reporter" news site has repeatedly and forcefully condemned what it mockingly calls "amnesia" on the part of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as senators co-sponsored a resolution calling for the use of the term "genocide" when discussing the tragedy.

... The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, Ken Hachikian, issued a blistering denunciation of Obama's latest statement, saying it made "a stark lie" out of his 2008 campaign pledge and charged it "represents the very opposite of the principled and honest change he promised to Armenian Americans and to all the citizens of our nation."

... ANCA, which has a list detailing Obama's pre-White House support for labeling the massacre a "genocide," recently condemned Clinton for saying recently whether to call it [genocide] "has always been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate."

Over 20 countries have recognized the events of 1915 as genocide, and 42 U.S. states have done so as well, either by legislation or proclamation.

Mr. Obama mustn't've thought Armenian Americans would notice his lapses. After all, grinding the world's biggest economy to a near halt, running up debt unequaled in the annals of finance, trashing America's once impeccable sovereign credit rating, dissing the Supreme Court (and this), ignoring Congress -- all these are historically breathtaking presidential attention grabbers. Who would've thought the Armenian community would actually keep tabs on candidate Obama's position on their genocide hobbyhorse? Obviously not candidate Obama.

Mr. Obama is once again a candidate. He is going to need a new trick to win the American Armenian vote. Perhaps he can explain how he'll have more policy flexibility in a second term. To hell with those denying Turks. Genocide is genocide!

Word.

CHOPE.

His sacred bond.

NYC Letter: John Kerry Is A Mook

Day 842 of CHOPE

He was for Syria...

Q: I wanted to ask you what you think could be done to encourage democracy in Syria and Iran?

Well, I personally believe that -- I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. And when I last went to -- the last several trips to Syria -- I asked President Assad to do certain things to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward.

... So I put about five or six requests – one was the purchase of land for the American embassy in Damascus. The other was the opening of an American cultural center. The other was the border assistance with respect to Iraq. The fourth was a visit to Iraq by the foreign minister. The fifth was patching up with Bahrain. And the sixth was sending an ambassador to Lebanon in order to send a message before the elections of their independence and to guarantee they’d stay out of the election process. Guess what? All six were done, delivered.

... So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.

John "Global Test" Kerry,
musing on a remediated Syria
instead of answering the question
U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST
WASHINGTON March 16, 2011 (Carnegie)

...before he was against Syria.

KERRY: IT'S TIME TO GIVE UP ON
ASSAD THE REFORMER

May 10, 2011 (The Cable) - Now that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has proven that he has no problem killing peaceful protesters in the streets, some of the most prominent advocates of engaging with the Assad regime are rethinking their views. That list now includes Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA), who told The Cable today that he no longer believed the Syrian regime was willing to reform.

... Kerry said he no longer saw the Syrian government as willing to reform. "He obviously is not a reformer now," he said, while also defending his previous stance. "I've always said the top goal of Assad is to perpetuate his own regime."

When pressed...about his earlier, rosier view of Assad, Kerry denied he had expected the Syrian regime would come around. Mr. Kerry:

I said there was a chance he could be a reformer if certain things were done. I wasn't wrong about if those things were done. They weren't done. I didn't hold out hope. I said there were a series of things that if he engaged in them, there was a chance he would be able to produce a different paradigm. But he didn't.

I said we have to put him to the test. I've always said it's a series of tests. The chance was lost and that's the end of it.

Mr. Kerry's position seems to be that parsed in hindsight in a particular way, he cannot be held to the clear intent of his earlier statements. But how to get around the specificity of the "five or six requests" Mr. Kerry pronounced "all done, delivered" that now he pronounces NOT done? [We carefully reread the senator's remarks. We re-reread the remarks. We re-re-reread them.] Classic Kerry dialectic, how to synthesize two different opinions about the same thing without being wrong about either? The solution? Deny any contradiction. It is just that easy.

We imagine in his quiet moments, Mr. Kerry continues to baffle himself -- "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot." The heroic burden in Mr. Kerry's life is that he cannot be wrong. About anything. From John "Breck Girl" Edwards to the end of ice to underpants to Syria, never wrong. It is a crushing burden.

CHOPE.

Never right before he is never wrong.

NYC Letter: Democrats In Charge VI - The Arab Spring

Day 827 of CHOPE

First, set the Wayback Machine to July 23, 2007.

Q: Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous. ... And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.

RODHAM-CLINTON: Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. ... But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.

A little mood music interlude.

IRAN, SYRIA MOCK U.S. POLICY

JERUSALEM February 26, 2010 (WaPo) - The presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East "without Zionists," combining a slap at recent U.S. overtures and a threat to Israel with an endorsement of one of the region's defining alliances.

... [T]he message delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a joint news conference was sharp and spoke to a shared sense that Iran is gaining influence in the region despite U.S. efforts.

... The relationship between Iran and Syria has become one of the central alliances in the region, of particular interest now as a barometer of the success of U.S. policy toward Iran and of whether a larger Arab-Israeli peace deal is possible.

Now, this mook.

Q: I wanted to ask you what you think could be done to encourage democracy in Syria and Iran?

Well, I personally believe that -- I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. And when I last went to -- the last several trips to Syria -- I asked President Assad to do certain things* to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward.

... So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.

John "Global Test" Kerry,
musing on a remediated Syria
instead of answering the question
U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST
WASHINGTON March 16, 2011 (Carnegie)

Next, this incredible exchange.

Q: Tens of thousands of people have turned out protesting in Syria, which has been under the iron grip of the Asad for so many years now, one of the most repressive regimes in the world, I suppose. And when the demonstrators turned out, the regime opened fire and killed a number of civilians. Can we expect the United States to enter the conflict in the way we have entered the conflict in Libya?

No. Each of these situations is unique, Bob. Certainly, we deplore the violence in Syria. We call, as we have on all of these governments during this period of the Arab Awakening, as some have called it, to be responding to their people’s needs, not to engage in violence, permit peaceful protests, and begin a process of economic and political reform.

The situation in Libya, which engendered so much concern from around the international community, had a leader who used military force against the protestors from one end of his country to the other, who publically said things like, “We’ll show no mercy. We’ll go house to house.” And the international community moved with great speed, in part because there’s a history here. This is someone who has behaved in a way that caused grave concern in the past 40 plus years in the Arab world, the African world, Europe, and the United States.

Q: But, I mean, how can that be worse than what has happened in Syria over the years, where Bashar Asad's father killed 25,000 people at a lick? I mean, they open fire with live ammunition on these civilians. Why is that different from Libya?

Well, I --

Q: This is a friend of Iran, an enemy of Israel.

Well, if there were a coalition of the international community, if there were the passage of Security Council resolution, if there were a call by the Arab League, if there was a condemnation that was universal – but that is not going to happen, because I don't think that it’s yet clear what will occur, what will unfold.

There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. What’s been happening there the last few weeks is deeply concerning, but there’s a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities [Incredulous laugh.] and then police actions, which, frankly, have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.

Hillary Rodham-Clinton,
SOS and purveyor of "smart power", assuring us,
the rough stuff aside, Mr. Assad is a reformer
INTERVIEW
WASHINGTON March 27, 2011
(CBS News/belgium.usembassy.gov)

This longueur has a simple point. All three former Democrat presidential candidates seriously misjudged Mr. Assad. This misjudgment had all three prepared to do business with Mr. Assad, and, in the cases of the senator and the SOS, play the shills. Now Mr. Assad is shooting protesters. [Pause.]

Remind us why we're in Libya.

To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and -- more profoundly -- our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

Mr. Obama,
getting ahead of the massacre curve
ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON LIBYA
WASHINGTON March 28, 2011 (White House)

No waiting on Syria.

SYRIAN TROOPS POUR INTO DAMASCUS SUBURB
April 26, 2011 (Reuters)

RESIDENTS BRAVE GUNFIRE TO RESCUE BODIES
AS SYRIA’S CRACKDOWN CONTINUES
BEIRUT April 26, 2011 (Globe & Mai/APl)

CIVILIANS FORCED TO HURL ROCKS AT TANKS
April 26, 2011 (Daily Mail)

SYRIANS STAND ALONE

OP-ED April 26, 2011 (Telegraph) - Next year sees the 30th anniversary of the Hama massacre, when Syria's president Hafez al-Assad used his army to crush a Sunni Muslim revolt. Ten thousand people died in what has been described as the "single deadliest act" by any Arab government against its own people. The decision of Hafez's son Bashar to send tanks into Dera'a – where the current anti-government unrest began five weeks ago – was clearly designed to send a brutal signal to insurgents that he has reverted to family type.

... And it is arguable that the West's uncertain response to the Libya crisis has also emboldened him. Muammar Gaddafi is still in place more than five weeks after air strikes began. More pertinently, Bashar knows that the chances of similar military deployment against Syria are zero.

... Just as in Bahrain, therefore, this is a part of the Arab spring that the West will be content to leave to its own devices. There will be words of condemnation and no doubt the prospect of sanctions will be mooted, though we would be surprised if any of significance are imposed. In essence, the people of Syria are – tragically – on their own.

Four hundred thirty-five plus Syrians have been killed since protests began last month.

Mr. Obama's arguments for the Libyan intervention are the same arguments to intervene in Syria. The arguments not to intervene in Syria are the same arguments against the Libyan intervention. Mr. Obama wants to have it both ways in the middle east.

It is hard to imagine an intervention in Syria. An "integratively complex thinker" like Mr. Obama might have used a little, uh, integratively complex thinking -- a little foresight -- before couching his Libyan adventure in high-minded big talk. Now he looks like a craven phony.

CHOPE.

Big talk. No principled policy.

------------------------------------
* Mr. Kerry's chores for Mr. Assad (p.16):

So I put about five or six requests – one was the purchase of land for the American embassy in Damascus. The other was the opening of an American cultural center. The other was the border assistance with respect to Iraq. The fourth was a visit to Iraq by the foreign minister. The fifth was patching up with Bahrain. And the sixth was sending an ambassador to Lebanon in order to send a message before the elections of their independence and to guarantee they’d stay out of the election process. Guess what? All six were done, delivered.

Of course not one of these chores does anything to advance democracy in Syria. Nowhere in the whole of Mr. Kerry's address does he burden Mr. Assad with any pesky democratizing chores.

NYC Letter: The Obama Doctrine, Part VII -- Eeny Meeny Humanitarianism

Day 826 of CHOPE

Remind us why we're in Libya.

In this particular country -- Libya -- at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence.

... To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and -– more profoundly -– our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

Mr. Obama,
explaining why America cannot shirk its responsibilities
ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON LIBYA
WASHINGTON March 28, 2011 (White House)

Mr. Obama flips the American humanitarian switch on for Libya.

Flips it off for Syria.*

SYRIAN ARMY MOBILISED
IN BANIAS AFTER KILLINGS

NICOSIA April 12, 2011 (The Penisula) - Syrian troops encircled the flashpoint coastal town of Banias yesterday, where weekend shootings left 13 dead and scores wounded, a human rights activist said.

... Syrian government forces on Sunday killed at least four people and wounded 17 when they strafed a residential area of the town with gunfire for hours, witnesses said. Nine soldiers, including two officers, were later killed and several wounded when their patrol was ambushed outside the town, the official Sana news agency said. Anas Al Shuhri, one of the leaders of the protest movement, said yesterday the "city is besieged by 30 tanks".

SYRIAN SOLDIERS SHOT FOR REFUSING
TO FIRE ON PROTESTERS

DAMASCUS April 19, 2011 (Guardian) - The reports came as a leading Syrian opposition figure said pro-government gunmen had attacked two villages close to Banias, 25 miles south of Latakia, which has become the latest focus of violence since protests on Friday. Haitham al-Maleh told AP attackers were using automatic rifles in Bayda and Beit Jnad.

Human rights organisations said at least five protesters in Banias had been killed since Sunday including one on Tuesday. In Bayda witnesses reported that security thugs had beaten up men in the central square, and rights groups said hundreds of people had been arrested.

SYRIAN MILITARY RESPONSE TO PROTEST
IN HOMS LEAVES AT LEAST 10 PEOPLE DEAD
April 19, 2011 (Bloomberg)

SYRIAN TROOPS OPEN FIRE ON MOURNERS
AT FUNERALS FOR PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTERS
April 23, 2011 (Guardian)

SYRIAN TANKS ROLL INTO CITIES
AS SECURITY CRACKDOWN
KILLS AT LEAST 20

April 25, 2011 (VOA) - Witnesses say several thousand Syrian army troops, flanked by special forces, shot their way into the southern city of Daraa before dawn Monday, causing numerous casualties. Tanks reportedly began the assault, shelling the city as they moved in from four sides.

... Reports say Syrian special forces stormed private homes to make arrests, Witnesses say snipers began shooting from rooftops and many victims remain lying in the streets.

... Syrian rights activists say that security forces also encircled the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Madaamiya, arresting hundreds of people.

SYRIAN TROOPS FIRE ON DARAA
AS CRACKDOWN DEATH TOLL RISES

April 26, 2011 (Bloomberg) - Syrian security forces strafed the streets of the southern city of Daraa with machine guns and the government cut off water supplies as the death toll from yesterday’s crackdown rose to 25, a witness said.

Snipers have taken up posts on the roofs of schools and mosques, said Mohsen, who spoke in an interview today by satellite phone and declined to give his surname on concern over reprisals. He said that he and other Daraa residents have pulled the bodies of 14 people from the streets since yesterday, and saw 11 others that they couldn’t remove because of sniper fire. Troops fired machine guns from tanks and armored vehicles.

And Syria looks to become more bloody as Mr. Assad tries to reach a death toll impressive enough to quell protests.

If you asked us if Mr. Bush would be in Syria today, we couldn't tell you. However if he were in Libya for the reasons outlined by Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush would be in Syria, too. So why isn't Mr. Obama? [Inhale. Long cynical pause.]

Because the Syrian massacres are penny-ante. A few dozen dead in Daraa. A dozen plus dead in Homs. A handful here. A handful there. Deaths in the low hundreds. Mr. Obama's humanitarianism is a matter of gigantine massacres.

To advance their cause, Syrian protesters could paint targets on their heads, assemble some place convenient to Mr. Assad's army, and line up to be shot, one by one. When a big magic number of deaths is reached Mr. Obama might be moved to act. Or maybe not.

Rich Lowry at NRO comments:

President Obama seems to want to leave the position of the leader of the free world vacant deliberately, to prove a point about our limits and our deference to others. He’s holding an ongoing world seminar on the dispensability of the formerly indispensable nation.

Obama’s America is a country whose commander-in-chief makes highly conditional suggestions in the guise of unconditional demands, whose allies can’t count on it, whose interests and values are negotiable. It is the embarrassed superpower, wishing away its unparalleled influence and seeking to hide behind euphemism and multilateral fictions.

... For his sophisticated defenders, Obama is ushering in the long-overdue post-American world. For the rest of the public, for whom national pride still means something, it may feel like the 1970s again, when a self-impressed Democratic president last tried to get us to accept our supposedly inevitable diminishment. Jimmy Carter made his era synonymous with American weakness and decline.

Carter had the failed Iranian hostage rescue attempt (he called it "an incomplete success") to put an exclamation point on his fecklessness and America’s stumbles. Obama has Libya, a perfect expression of his ambiguous leadership.

CHOPE.

No particular moment for Syria.

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* The NYT has a running timeline on events in Syria here.