Obama Walks Back Armenian Genocide Pledge

On October 2, 2008 Barack Obama wrote that “the Armenian Genocide” of 1915 was “a widely documented fact.” But on April 24, 2012, he would only go so far as to call it an atrocity.

As a matter of fact, in 2008 he described the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians “in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire” as an “undeniable” genocide, but now, almost four years later, he cannot bring himself to use the word “genocide.” So what changed?

What changed was the amount of control (and power) Islamists now hold in Turkey, a NATO member. And last year, when Obama still dared suggest there had been an Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s ambassador in Washington went apoplectic. Thus now, it appears Obama is denying the “undeniable” facts surrounding the genocide in order to keep peace with Islamists in Turkey.

And he is also denying himself. For on October 2, 2008, he also wrote: “As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” Yet on Armenian Remembrance Day 2012, he refused to make that recognition.

No wonder the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America is now referring to Obama’s 2008 pledge as a “stark lie.”