Says Royal Holloway prof, and I suppose colleague, David Cesarani in a wankerish letter to the Guardian:
Would Mearsheimer and Walt care to explain the power of the Armenian lobby?
Apart from “why not ask them?”, I can offer a more useful answer.
The bill, pushed by Armenian-Americans, who crucially are an important constituency for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was more-or-less identical to a bill which has been put before the committee every year for decades, and which has been killed by the committee every year when the State Department urges congress not to upset relations with Turkey.
But this year, thanks to a combination of factors including (1) rampant hostility between the US executive and the legislative majority, (2) the blatant hypocrisy of this particular administration urging congress to keep quiet lest it upset foreigners, and (3) the convenient fact that this particular atrocity was committed by Muslims against Christians, the bill actually went through.
Job’s a good ‘un, then. What the hell a historian is doing pretending to be ignorant of the existence of Armenian emigration beats me.