ERDOGAN HAS AT LEAST ONE ALLY IN CONGRESS

Ilhan Omar’s strange affinity for Turkey’s Islamist tyrant

By Post Editorial Board

New York Post
October 30, 2019

Rep. Ilhan Omar is showing a strange reluctance to cross Turkish tyrant Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Tuesday, she was the only Democrat to vote against a bill to impose sanctions on Turkey over Erdogan’s invasion of northeast Syria and also abstain on a separate bill to call out the century-old Armenian genocide.

Both passed with huge support: 405-11 on the bill noting that the Ottoman-era killing of 1.5 million Armenians was indeed genocide, 403-16 on the sanctions measure.

Turkish governments have long denied the Armenian genocide out of national pride. And of course the current government hates being called out on its Syrian incursion, especially its efforts to slaughter Syrian Kurds.

But most Democrats, understandably enough, saw the sanctions vote as a way to slap President Trump, who abruptly pulled US forces out of the way of Erdogan’s advance.

Omar says sanctions are part of a “failed foreign-policy playbook.” And she said she couldn’t support the genocide resolution because it didn’t mention “the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide.”

Looks to us more like the Islamist ruler of Turkey has at least one ally in Congress.