Hillary Clinton earned this smile for brokering an Armenian treaty with Turkey.
Lost in last week’s hubbub about Barack Obama’s unexpectedly winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was the startling news that Hillary Clinton helped broker a treaty between Turkey and Armenia. If diplomacy holds, Mrs. Clinton would have to be among the frontrunners for the 2010 prize. And what a sea change that would represent—two American peace prize winners in a row!
More on Hillary in a moment, but first let me say that I agree with conservatives that Obama’s 2009 award was inappropriate. I’ve been a supporter of the president, but the prize was grossly premature and is as much of a burden to Mr. Obama as it is an honor. He appeared genuinely surprised and embarrassed by the announcement and did, with dignity, about the best he could—he announced he would use the award as a “challenge” and that he would donate the $1.4 million cash award to charity. He’d better use it as a challenge; he’s yet to resolve the two wars he inherited, reverse prisoner interrogation procedures, or make any headway against foes such as Iran, the Taliban, or North Korea. In fact, he’s done very little of substance to differentiate himself from George W. Bush. But he has listened to the world community and has expressed a willingness to abandon unilateralism. The latter promise is why he won the Nobel Prize. The award should seen for what it is—not a recognition of Obama, rather a repudiation of Bush. It is a measure of just how scared the Europeans were of Bush’s reckless cowboy (non) diplomacy. Still, one should be cited for what one does, not one’s rhetoric.
On the score of achievement, how about some love for Hillary? For those who are unaware—and that’s most Americans—the Armenians and Turks are akin to the Jews and Palestinians of the Caucasus. Like many conflicts, that between the Eastern Orthodox Christian Armenians and the predominately Sunni Muslim Turks is rooted in the religious conflicts of the Middle Ages. As a flea on the global body politic, an independent Armenia has disappeared more often than it has existed. Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines all at some point absorbed Armenia, long before Muslims arrived on the scene. Once they did, however, Arabs, Mongols, and Iranians controlled Armenia and some—especially the Mongols—were vicious rulers. When Ottoman Turks took over in 1524, conditions were actually better for several centuries, and Armenian culture, language, and religion thrived. In the 19th century, however, Ottoman rule turned authoritarian. The Ottoman iron hand served only to inspire the growth of Armenian nationalism and to exacerbate hatred. It all came to a head during World War I when the Ottomans supported the Axis and Armenians the Allies. During 1915-16, the Turks massacred between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians. History judges this as a holocaust, a term Turks refuse to acknowledge and Armenians refuse to call by any other name. And so matters have stood for the past 93 years.
It cannot be overemphasized what a big deal it was when Hillary Rodham Clinton worked with European leaders to forge diplomatic ties between Armenia and Turkey. Hatred doesn’t even begin to describe what the two groups have felt toward one another. This is the equivalent of Hamas and Likud leaders sharing a Sabbath meal, or of Fidel Castro being the keynote speaker at a Republican Party fundraiser. It remains to be seen if the treaty is strong enough to dam more than half a millennia’s worth of hatred. If it does, to not award Mrs. Clinton next year’s Nobel Prize would be far more egregious than honoring President Obama in 2009.
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