As expected, US relations with Turkey have taken a turn for the worse as a result of  the 27-21 passage of H.RES.106  by the House Foreign Affairs committee declaring the 1915 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks  genocide. Today the  dangerous potential consequences to the our troops in Iraq and the stability of the region moved closer to becoming a reality. Turkey is moving towards an incursion into Northern Iraq, and their Kurdish opposition is responding with threats of increased terrorism.

The potential for this to quickly escalate and to cause a series of simmering regional crisis to boil over (including US-Iran tensions) is very real. For once, I find myself siding with the White House on an issue of Middle East policy, and in full agreement with our Congressman, Connie Mack IV, who voted against this resolution.

The timing of this resolution is questionable, as is the notion of Congress deciding the validity of contentious, foreign, historical issue that occurred nearly a century ago. At this point, this seems like something that should be debated by historians not politicians. And while I am sympathetic to the Armenian perspective, I think this vote was driven more by domestic political considerations in certain districts than any current foreign policy necessities.

It seems that even when the Democrats actually manage to accomplish something in congress, it’s still counterproductive. Of course, if President Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress hadn’t led the charge to foolishly invaded Iraq in the first place, this probably wouldn’t have become such a critical issue…

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The “War and Drugs” and the “War on Terror” often intersect in surprising and frustrating ways. One example is the explosive growth of opium production in Afghanistan since 2001. The current policy there is clearly not working.

In Afghanistan however, there might be a better option. There is a proposal to use the poppies grown there for legal medicinal production. While there’s no guarantee it will work, I believe we should at least the pilot program a shot, and that this is exactly the sort of constructive alternatives to the current Administration’s failed policies that congress should support.

The following story from The Real News provides more details: