When American television networks need commentary on Middle Eastern affairs, chances are good that they will turn to R. H. Dekmejian. Dekmejian is Professor of Political Science and Professor of International Business at the University of Southern California. He has written extensively on political elites, ethnic politics, and political violence. His most recent book, Islam in Revolution, is in its second edition. Dekmejian received his doctorate from Columbia University. He spoke with Armenian Forum editor Vincent Lima on 17 May 1999 in Los Angeles.

Vincent Lima: It’s election day today in Israel. Perhaps it’s a good time to think about the ways in which political developments in the Middle East can effect Armenia’s security.

R. H. Dekmejian: Armenia is very vulnerable as a landlocked small state located in a very dangerous neighborhood. The magnitude of the danger to Armenia is not truly appreciated by observers, Armenian and foreign, in the diaspora or in Armenia itself. What really pains me and worries me is that neither the Armenian authorities nor the Armenian people in the homeland or in the diaspora are really deeply conscious or concerned about Armenia’s vulnerability. In the subfield of international relations and in diplomacy we have our standards of vulnerability, and measured by these standards, Armenia’s future as an independent territorial entity is under question.

So, starting from that general given, I believe that any development in the Middle Eastern and larger Eurasian region surrounding Armenia is of great importance to Armenia. Even changes in United States–China relations may have an impact on Armenia. The extent to which, for example, the Arabs and the Israelis are in conflict in the future, the nature of the evolution of that conflict, or something beyond conflict—such as Arab-Israeli peace—will have an impact on Armenia’s foreign policy and its security.

When we deal with the Armenian reality, we have to understand that our greatest concern is Turkey. Militarily, Turkey is one of the most powerful states in the whole region. It has one of the largest armies. It has been a favored ally of the United States and a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Massive amounts of economic and military aid have been showered upon Turkey since it became a member of NATO back in 1949–50. We’re talking about a state that is very heavily armed with highly advanced technologies and high-tech weaponry—from helicopters to kill Kurds, to advanced jet fighters (some of which are being renovated by Israel, by the way), to a massive tank force. All we have to do is look at the military balance that is published by the Institute of International Strategic Studies of London to see the incredible lineup. And that is what’s published. We know nothing of Turkey’s nuclear program. The United States, pointing at Pakistan and India and at Iran and Iraq never talks about Turkey’s nuclear program. I’m sure there is such a nuclear program. I don’t know about it precisely because no one talks about it.

Lima: Are you engaging in pure speculation?

Dekmejian: I think the Turks have it. But the Americans don’t like talking about it, nor do the Israelis or the American press thus far, because Turkey has been defined as an ally.

Beyond military might, there is the attitude of Turkey. You might have thought that as a genocidal state, having authored the Genocide, Turkey would have taken a much softer attitude toward the Armenians when the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict came about. But, of course, they didn’t. And given their record, I didn’t expect them to. They should have, but they did not. So, therefore, I’d be very very afraid of Turkey, especially if the Russian umbrella is removed. It is already very weak by my estimation.

Last but not least, if Pan-Turanism continues to develop in Turkey as it seems to have, especially since the Soviet collapse, I think that the old notion that only Armenia separates Turkey from their Central Asian "brethren" would become a major problem again. The fact is that even the Azerbaijanis are not acutely interested in that kind of a union, much less the Turkic republics further in Central Asia. But many Turks look upon such a union as a major dream.

Therefore, the rapprochement between Turkey and Israel, which began in 1996, has been of great concern to Armenians. This concern is acute despite the fact that there is in Israel significant sympathy for the Armenian cause. Yes, there are hard-liners and even those who would deny the reality of the Armenian Genocide. But most Israeli and Jewish scholars are not only sympathetic to the Armenian cause as far as the documentation of the Genocide is concerned but have been at the forefront of writing about it, and we need to be thankful for that to them.

The question involves basically the Armenian relationship to the Arabs and to Israel. Armenians sympathize with Israel in the sense that they find some commonness with the Jewish people for their persecution throughout the centuries, and they admire what Israel has done. On the other hand, they also know that there were the victims, particularly the Palestinians. They sympathize with the Palestinians, particularly since the Palestinians are an Arab people and the Armenians were given haven by the Arabs after the Genocide in 1915. In Syria, in Lebanon, in Egypt, in Iraq, in Jordan, the Arabs welcomed the Armenians, and when some Armenians started going back to Armenia, the Arabs said to us, Why are you doing this? Why are you going back? Did we do anything to you? Did we hurt you? And therefore there is a deep Armenian feeling of sympathy for the Arabs and the Arab cause. Some Armenians have assumed the role of Arab nationalists, because they live in the Arab countries and they sympathize with the Arab cause and the Palestinian cause. So that is the Armenian dilemma and much of our support, when Armenia, after its independence, was in pretty bad shape, has come from the Arabs, particularly from Syria and Lebanon, despite the fact that these countries had their own problems.

Lima: What kind of support are you talking about?

Dekmejian: I’m talking about diplomatic support. For example Egypt trained a number of Armenian diplomats. Very close ties exist between Armenia and Syria. Very close ties exist between Armenia and Lebanon.

There is a larger relationship between the Armenians and the Islamic world. Armenians have been living in the Islamic countries for generations, for centuries, and most of the time, with the exception of Turkey, have found haven in Islamic countries. Armenians have been in Iran since immemorial times. And the Iranians know this. Even during the most troublesome period of the Islamic revolution, their rights at least at the very basic level were protected and preserved. Our relationship with Iran within the Islamic world is of special concern and that’s a relationship that has been very valuable to Armenia despite American enmity toward Iran.

Coming back to the case of Turkey and Israel: We knew that there was a Turkish-Israeli connection going back to the fifties. That connection was reinforced by the fact that Israel was surrounded by Arab states that were unfriendly, and the fact that Arabs and Turkey were opposed to each other precisely because Turkey has been seen as an imperialist power by the Arab states (in the context of the Ottoman Empire) as well as a state that has close ties with the West and with NATO at a time when the Arabs had their Israeli problem next door. But in 1996, and since then, both countries came out and began to celebrate their relationship and develop it into what appears to be an axis, with Jordan as a junior partner—although not a very reliable one. It has been that axis and its extension to Azerbaijan that has been of particular Armenian concern.

A resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would be not only good for the region, for the Arabs and the Israelis, but for Armenians as well. Armenians live in the region. They have a major stake in Jerusalem. But also very importantly, a genuine rapprochement between Israel and the Arabs, particularly between Israel and Syria, and the resolution of the Palestinian and Jerusalem issues would mean that the Israeli relationship with Turkey would not be as necessary for Israel as Israel has perceived it to be all this time.

Particularly Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights would do a great deal to bring together generally Arabs and Israelis and bring about a genuine peace between Arab and Israeli. Such a peace would reduce the strategic necessity of an Israeli-Turkish axis that cannot but generate fear among the Arabs as well as the Armenians—especially if that axis treats Azerbaijan as sort of a natural extension.

Lima: What are the prospects for such a comprehensive resolution of conflicts between Arab countries and Israel?

Dekmejian: Well, the elections today are salutary precisely because Ehud Barak, former Israeli general and a natural ideological and in a sense spiritual successor to Yitzhak Rabin, is in a very good position to complete the peace process with the Palestinians. There are major issues to be dealt with. The Jerusalem issue is a clash-of-civilizations issue in the tradition of Samuel Huntington. But it can be resolved. Most Israelis and most Arabs know that it can be resolved and it should be resolved, but the extremists on both sides, particularly religious extremists, are opposed to that resolution. So the prospects for a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict today look much brighter than they did before. None of this means that it’s going to be done very quickly, but if it is done, then a lot of animosity in the Middle East will cease, and much of the Middle East will flourish into a new Semitic civilization, where Arabs and Jews can come together and really fulfill a destiny of peace—instead of these projections of apocalypse that we see in the Christian and other millenarian traditions as the year 2000 comes along—and that will be really good for Armenia.

The pro-Israeli lobbies—at least some of them—have been agitating, working in Washington with the Turkish lobbies against Armenia’s interests. Armenians have made repeated appeals to Jewish groups, noting that Armenia’s national existence, the very integrity of our state (which is not very large anyway) is at stake. They have drawn attention to the history of Armenian-Jewish friendship built in this country, and to the repeated attempts to commiserate, and have noted that the actions of the pro-Israel lobbies are generating a sense of bad feeling among Armenians. They have said that Jewish groups that support Israel should be concerned about cooperating with Turkey on issues that are against Armenia’s interest. This cooperation is seen as a major threat, given the important position the Jewish community has in American politics.

Lima: You said that Barak is well-disposed toward peace. Is there as similar will on the part of the United States government? Do they want to see peace?

Dekmejian: On the Palestinian side there’s Yaser Arafat and the various factions that constitute his Palestinian Authority. They are prepared to settle. They have been prepared for a long time. On the Syrian side, I think the Syrians are prepared to bring peace to southern Lebanon, stop the attacks against Israel by Hezbollah—if there is a full Israeli withdrawal—as well as give a guarantee to the Israelis on the cordon sanitaire in southern Lebanon, in addition to a demilitarization of the Golan Heights. They would want to get full control of the Golan Heights, but would agree to demilitarize it much like the Sinai, which is demilitarized and has American and other United Nations observers. What I’m afraid of, however, is—well, it’s important to deal with these things with some dispatch, because the Syrian leadership is—well, Hafez el-Asad is not a young man. There are very capable people in Syria to succeed him, but it’s good to reach an agreement when a person with his authority and strong position signs the final document.

Lima: How about the United States?

Dekmejian: I think Bill Clinton will be pushing for it because he’s not up for reelection. In that sense it’s a good time. First-term presidents don’t like to push for these things because they want reelection, and the ethnic vote—all ethnic votes—could make a difference in a closely fought election in places like California and New York. I think for that same reason, in terms of the Gharabagh conflict this is not a propitious time for us.

Lima: How’s that?

Dekmejian: The fact that the Clinton administration has been distracted by a variety of problems—from the Chinese campaign funding scandal, to the charge that China has stolen nuclear secrets, to the Lewinsky matter, to even Kosovo—and these distractions in a sense have helped the Armenians. I don’t think the Armenian government has been able to benefit from that help directly because of their disastrous domestic and foreign policy, but clearly the State Department and White House have been distracted from leaning on the Armenians to give up Gharabagh. Now, if we had a very powerful lobbying arm. . . . We have two very good lobbies, but that in Washington’s power constellation is totally insufficient to get anything done in terms of political influence.

This interregnum has helped us, as has the fact that there’s plentiful oil around, and low oil prices, and the great lie that there are massive oil reserves in the Caspian is being exposed as a lie. We have numerous studies showing that this is a lie. One of my students, a Saudi diplomat, wrote a dissertation on it last year. This whole lie was thrown at the world by Azerbaijanis and their friends in Washington. It’s a high level of political risk and extremely high levels of expense to extract it, especially since you have to extract much of it from the sea, from the Caspian; and there’s very high political risk associated with the pipelines to bring it out. My Arab friends in the Gulf will do it for much cheaper, and it’s much easier to get it from there, given especially Saudi Arabia’s massive plans to expand production facilities. The amount of oil available in the gulf is such that it is not feasible, not necessary for world oil markets to take anything from the Caspian.

Lima: Is it good or bad for Armenia that the potential of Caspian oil turns out to have been overblown?

Dekmejian: I think it’s good for Armenia. If Armenia was an Israel—as powerfully armed and with a really committed, highly qualified population, not a population one-fourth of which and some of the most productive elements of which have left Armenia—if Armenia was that and had a very strong democratic culture and a real popular leadership that was elected, a highly conscious leadership that was closely connected to the diaspora (which the current leadership is not), with highly organized lobbying power in Washington, then Armenia could tell the world in so many words, "Look, we’d love for you to bring out oil through Armenia, through Georgia, through Iran, anywhere, but remember that we have national interests. If you would like us to support the world’s need for Caspian oil, then the world needs to understand our national interests in a minimal manner." In diplomatic language that means that Armenia needs to be satisfied strategically in terms of its basic security needs if that pipeline is going to be safe. But we’re not in a position to say that.

If indeed we said that and something happened to a pipeline in Georgia, the Turks would come and punish us.

Lima: You mentioned a number of factors. Is it first a question of a lack of military might?