Turkey's erratic genocide jurisprudence

In the early 1990s, Turkey started to generously buy off-the-shelf arms from foreign manufacturers who had happily discovered an emerging but potentially lucrative market.

Spoiled by big companies vying for Turkish contracts in manners reminiscent of the insurance policy salesman in Tintin?s adventures, the Turks occupying important official seats discovered they could extract benefits from their roles as rich buyers. Some personally got rich. More innocent ones calculated that Turkey could use defense contracts as a foreign policy tool.

Before the French legislature recognized the Armenian genocide in 2001 Turkey threatened to freeze all economic, political and military ties with the country, including defense contracts. The French recognized the Armenian genocide. And Turkey?s bilateral trade with France rose from $4 billion in 2001 to $15 billion a decade later.

However, a decade later Turkey was threatening France again: This time, all economic, political and military ties would be frozen if the French legislature criminalized the denial of Armenian genocide.

Then-foreign minister Ahmet Davuto?lu said the French bill, if passed, would ?dishonor our country and nation.?

Having learned from past experiences how punishing Turkey?s wrath could be, the French legislature passed the genocide denial bill. A few months later, France?s Supreme Court overturned the bill. So, ?our country and nation were not dishonored.? In June 2012, Mr. Davuto?lu cheerfully announced Turkey and France could now live happily ever after.

That set a new Turkish jurisprudence on the genocide dispute. Between 2001 and 2012, Turkey moved from threatening countries whose legislatures could recognize the genocide to living happily ever...