The Scots newspaper The Sunday Herald gives this reason in the article Killer blow could fuel Turkish war
So, there should be little fuss about what happened in Washington last week. Except that it was not just about correcting an historical wrong. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saw it is an opportunity to embarrass President George W Bush, who has already said that he will fight any attempt to put the matter to a full Congressional vote. He doesn't want to upset a major US ally at a time when the US is dependent on Turkey to support operations in Iraq. He has good reason to be concerned, as Turkey has already withdrawn its ambassador from Washington and is making threats to deny the US further use of the strategic air force base at Incirlik.
And this is where things get really murky. At stake are issues which go beyond the historical bickering over what happened 90 years ago. Today it's about dealing with a country which could quite easily destabilise the whole geo-strategic region. In what could be seen as a reprise of past events the Turkish military is making ominous noises about engaging guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) who have been attacking their forces in southeast Turkey. Forces have been moved up in preparation for a cross-border strike and Turkish commanders are said to be in a dangerous mood, anxious to give the PKK a bloody nose.
Now, I think George W. Bush is fully capable of embarrassing himself (the problem being he does not know he is an embarrassment). I think the United States Congress has better options for embarrassing Bush or giving him the opportunity to embarass himself. I also thnk that there are better things that could be done with Congress' time (not that this resolution really took that much time from more important matters) which would not pose troublesome to our national interests. Consider this from The Guardian Online, US tries to halt Turkey attack:
Senior US officials were engaged last night in last-ditch efforts to persuade Turkey not to launch a major military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to target armed separatists.
A team was diverted from a mission to Russia to make an unscheduled stop in Ankara yesterday. Against the background of the escalating diplomatic row between Turkey and the US over a congressional resolution that branded as 'genocide' massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, revealed she had personally urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq. The row between the two Nato allies comes against the dangerous background of a threat by the Turkish parliament to approve this week a 'hot pursuit' of the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, across the border into northern Iraq.
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