Whether President Obama will declare on April 24 that the Ottoman Armenian tragedy constituted the crime of genocide, or whether sometime in the next two years the U.S. House or Senate will pass a resolution declaring the same will be a political decision. Predicting the outcome of a political decision-making process is much like predicting the weather: the longer the lead-time, the more difficult it is to be accurate because of the many variables at play. Change in any one of them can cascade through the entire system, altering the outcome.
Binding or Non-Binding, President or Congress, A Genocide Accusation Will Shatter Relations
Of course it unimportant who declares that the genocide allegation is valid, whether it is the President in an April 24 statement or a chamber of Congress in a resolution, even a non-binding one. The result would be the same: Turkish-American relations would suffer a profound rupture; one that likely would take years to mend. At a minimum, U.S. expectations in the vital region around Turkey would have to be recalibrated, likely downward.
Obama's Outstretched Hand to Turkey
President Obama has already bestowed upon Turkey premier status by selecting it as the first majority-Muslim state that he will visit. This has, as widely reported in the U.S. media, diminished the probability that he will follow up his visit, at which weighty issues of regional importance and U.S. national security will be discussed, with what will amount to a severe slap in the face to his recent hosts. The Los Angeles Times confirmed on March 17 that, "The Obama Administration is hesitating on a promised presidential declaration...."
A Newly Assertive Turkish American Community
One can only hope that President Obama, or at least his senior foreign policy advisors, took note of the letter sent to him on February 6 by over 50 Turkish American associations urging him neither to condemn Turkey by statement nor support a congressional genocide resolution. The signatories agreed that,
It would be stating the obvious to observe that Armenian special interest lobbies are pressuring your Administration and Congress to label the tragic events in the waning hours of the Ottoman Empire during World War I as the crime of genocide. To dispute the characterization as unsubstantiated by the weight of reliable evidence is not to withhold sympathy from Armenians and others, including Ottoman Muslims, who also suffered harrowing casualties during World War I. And to accept this one-sided characterization unilaterally by ignoring independent and impartial assessments by Middle East historians and scholars would be both grossly unfair and potentially incendiary to Southeast Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

Wavering Congressional Support
Meanwhile, Congressional supporters of the recently introduced genocide resolution in the House, H. Res. 252, have begun expressing doubts about whether it can achieve passage. At a March 12 press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long promised a full House vote on a genocide resolution, appeared to hedge her bets, saying, "My position is clear about the Armenian genocide. Whether the House votes on it or not, that doesn't make it so or not so."
Consider also that when H. Res. 106, the genocide resolution from the last Congress was introduced, it started with over 100 co-sponsors and eventually had more than 200. The current resolution, H. Res. 252 has fewer than 80 co-sponsors. And many Members of Congress who sponsored H. Res. 106 have indicated they will not sponsor or support H. Res. 252.
Improving Relations Between Turkey and Armenia
Moreover, Turkey and Armenia have been making genuine strides toward bilateral rapprochement. Should this effort continue to advance, it would be difficult for either the President or Congress to divert the process by focusing on the genocide accusation. Of course Turkey and Armenia do not resolve their differences in a vacuum. And any lasting improvement will have to incorporate the interests of Russia and Azerbaijan principally, and to a lesser though still real extent, other regional neighbors. Thus, while there may be no regional quick fix from, for example, the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, the stakes for the entire region are high and it would be irrational for the U.S. to jeopardize them over a 100 year-old controversy.
An axiom in modern weather modeling is that if a butterfly chances to flap its wings in Beijing in March, then by August the small breeze created can change hurricane patterns in the Atlantic. Therefore, just as it is difficult to accurately predict the weather months in advance, the positive trends outlined above can quickly reverse as events unfold. Thus, though April 24 may come and go without President Obama proclaiming an Armenian genocide, the 111th Congress will not expire until January 3, 2011 and a resolution can be acted upon at any time until then.
Continued Jewish American Support
A prime example of events with unintended consequences were Israel's Gaza operation and the Turkish leadership's response, which was arguably the most stringent in the region, surpassing the cautious condemnations offered by many Arab states that have no relations with Israel at all. The government statements and Prime Minister Erdoğan's passionate debating performance at Davos caused rampant speculation about whether Jewish American groups would continue bolstering Turkey's opposition to the genocide accusation both in Congress and before the White House.
To assess the likelihood of this change coming to pass, one must first realize that Jewish American groups have dual concerns. The first is for Israel's security. And most Americans understand that Turkey is one of Israel's key, if not indispensible, regional allies. Despite the words uttered by the Turkish leadership in the heat of the moment, American Jews eventually saw Turkey move to defuse the crisis and keep relations with Israel on an even keel, thus preserving the its strategic attributes. Nevertheless, reverberations of this crisis remain; at least from the Jewish American perspective, Turkey's standing to serve as an honest broker between Israel and its Arab neighbors has been compromised.
A second, independent concern of Jewish American groups is the safety of Turkey's Jewish population. At the beginning of the crisis, the Turkish leadership offered mixed messages, on one day reaffirming that anti-Semitism is a "crime against humanity," while the next describing the Gaza offensive as a "stain against humanity." Further, the media reported some ugly, though non-violent incidents aimed at Turkey's small Jewish community. Some began to fear the worst, even a repeat of the events of September 6-7, 1955 when nationalist riots caused the mass departure of nearly half of Turkey's Greek population. But as with remediation with Israel, this was not allowed to spin out of control; the Turkish government strongly reaffirmed its support for religious freedom, made a show of protecting Jewish properties in Istanbul, and even apparently began prosecuting those who had attempted to incite further anti-Semitism. In sum, while American Jews were reassured of the safety of Turkey's Jews and an exodus of the Jews from Turkey never materialized, damage was nevertheless done. As the leader of one Jewish American organization explained to me, while the Turkish government may not be anti-Semitic, its rhetoric allowed those in Turkish society who are anti-Semitic to feel freer than ever before to express their hatred.
Because the worst of the crisis was averted it may be expected that most Jewish American organizations will continue to oppose genocide recognition by the U.S. government. At worst, some organizations will abstain from taking sides at all. It is not likely that we will see a shift by Jewish organizations to support the Armenian cause.
Another wild card in the mix is Iran. Turkey has offered to mediate between the U.S. and Iran. The Obama administration's policies toward Iran are still in their infancy, so the potential remains equally for Iran to be an irritant in U.S. Turkish relations or a bright spot. Unfortunately, the former is more likely. During the last two years Turkey has been reaching framework agreements with Iran for energy trade and development that tread very closely to violating the Iran Sanctions Act. If they cross the line, then Turkey may end up placing the Obama administration in the potentially uncomfortable situation of having to either sanction the transactions or issue a waiver. Also, Turkey's service as an interlocutor is not without risk. There is no meaningful pro-Iran constituency in the U.S. It is easy for a member of Congress to speak strongly against Iran, and by extension, any country that supports it. For example, when the House of Representatives considered last year legislation strengthening sanctions against Iran, the vote was 415-11.
With Friends Like These
A final lingering problem is that although the Congressional Caucus on Turkey is growing and solidly promotes U.S.-Turkish relations, few if any of its members are willing to defend Turkey on the Armenian issue other than to say that accusing Turkey of genocide is not in U.S. national interests. This argument is growing rather tired and cannot sustain itself indefinitely. In effect, it ignores the moral argument being made by the Armenian side. Thus, it is solely in the hands of the Turkish American community and others to argue that the genocide accusation is wrong because the facts of history do not provide evidence sufficient to substantiate the charge.
Reestablishing American Credibility in the Region
The United States' credibility among Muslims worldwide is at an all-time low. Rehabilitating U.S. credibility in the Muslim world will hinge on Turkey receiving fair treatment by the U.S., whose legal system presumes that the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Following World War I, President Woodrow Wilson appointed to the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference Col. Charles Furlong, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who had spent significant time in the eastern Ottoman Empire. In a March 23, 1920 letter to the President, Furlong criticized America's susceptibility to pro-Armenian propaganda. He wrote, "We hear much, both truth and gross exaggeration of Turkish massacre of Armenians, but little or nothing of the Armenian massacres of Turks." He worried that the U.S.' apparent favoritism toward Christian please would harm our ability to carry out policy in the Muslim word. He presaged that, "[O]ur opportunity to gain the esteem and respect of the Moslem world ... will depend much on whether America hears Turkey's untrammeled voice and evidence which she has never succeeded in placing before the Court of Nations." A right decision on the treatment of Turkey, Furlong counseled, "will bind closer ... the eastern and western world ...," while a wrong decision, Furlong warned, "will be a calamity and may again set aflame an infinitely greater fire than that which seems to be smothered."

David Saltzman is an attorney in private practice in Washington, DC. He is counsel to the Turkish Coalition of America and the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund.