Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict by Vahakn N. Dadrian (hardcover)

Warrant for Genocide provides a unique, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the underlying causes of the Armenian genocide. It traces genocide to the origin and history of the long-standing Turko-Armenian discord with the massacres as a mean to resolve the conflict between a powerful, dominant group and a weak, vulnerable minority.

The genocide was neither an accident nor an aberration. The seeds of the large-scale destruction can be found in the 1919-1920 Turkish Court Martial documents of leaders of the Ittihadist regime. These were replete with xenophobic nationalism, calls for the use of arms to achieve that end, and references to Islam to incite the masses against Armenians. The utmost secrecy, camouflage, and deflection with respect to their plans were evident in what was not said.

Vahakn Dadrian carefully details these calculated deliberations and the concomitant shift from Ottomanism to Turkism in the radical wing of the regime. He illustrates how this rekindled enmities between dominant Turks and subject minorities. The desire to neutralize or eliminate the opposition helped pave the way to a new and radical nationality policy.