How Stupid Can One Man Be.

I'm not sure I want to be writing this. Let alone going into too much detail.

Sadly though there are some amongst us who are incapable of picking up on hints - both subtle and not so subtle. Instead they seem to need to have things explained to them really slowly and really clearly. Ideally with lots of pictures.

Key to the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is the cutting of their supply lines into Turkey - their main sponsor. Since the summer of 2015 that supply line has been reduced to an area roughly 100km (60 miles) wide. This stretches from Azaz in the west to the Euphrates River in the east and is referred to as either "Erdogan's Pocket" or "Garvaghy Road."

Certainly since the eastern border of this supply line has come under pressure in the east around the Tishrin Dam and the city of Manbij Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been desperate to invade this area. The intention being to reinforce it with Turkish tanks and troops in order to keep supplies flowing back and forth between Turkey and ISIL forces in both Aleppo City and the group's de facto Syrian capital Raqqa.

That Turkey is able to intervene in Syria or anywhere else to support ISIL is not something that Erdogan should even be able to entertain. However on August 25th (25/8/16) the US gave Turkey permission to launch such an invasion. This permission was given on the strict understanding that Turkey would limit itself to a very narrow area of operations and all Turkish forces - both regular and irregular - would be withdraw from Syria by a pre-arranged date.

In little more than a day Turkish forces had completely disregarded their narrow area of operations. As such US President Obama's meeting with Erdogan on Sunday (5/9/16) at the G20 Summit was seen as critical. It would be here that Obama would chastise Erdogan for disregarding the agreement a secure an enforceable pledge that Turkish forces would withdraw by the agreed date.

It shocked everyone then when Obama completely failed in this task and appears to have given Erdogan his full backing to support ISIL indefinitely.

Obama has attempted to justify this unforgivable decision by claiming that if he'd told Erdogan to end his support for ISIL Erdogan would start a trade war between the US and Turkey that would destroy the US economy.

That Erdogan would try and bully the US using trade is a reasonable assumption. After all Erdogan has previously used trade to try and bully other nations. However that track record gives us a clear indication of how successful Erdogan has been in those efforts.

In 2010 Turkey sent a flotilla of militants to attempt to break the naval blockade of Gaza imposed to stop arms smuggling. In response to Israel stopping that flotilla Erdogan announced that Turkey was breaking off all economic and political ties with Israel. At the time bilateral trade between Turkey and Israel was around USD6bn per year.

This Turkish economic and political blockade was accompanied by an increase in arms shipments to militant groups in Gaza. This caused Israel to fight two wars in the autumn of 2012 and the summer of 2014.

Despite this Israel - a nation of just 8.5 million - did not collapse either economically nor politically.

In June of this year Erdogan was forced to back down and restore economic and political links with Israel.

In November of 2015 Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 over Syria. In response Erdogan announced that it was breaking off economic and political ties with Russia. At the time bilateral trade between Turkey and Russia was worth around USD23bn per year.

The Russian economy of course was already struggling due to a combination of low oil prices and the sanctions the US had imposed over Russia's opposition to ISIL.

Despite this though Turkey couldn't sustain a trade war with Russia for more than a few months. So also in June Erdogan backed down and restored economic and political links with Russia. This included a full personal apology by Erdogan to Russian President Putin for shooting down the aircraft.

Turkey is the US 34th largest trading partner with trade between the two nations valued at just USD1.8bn. To put that in perspective total US trade is valued at around US2.3tn of which trade with Turkey is around 0.07%. However trade with the US makes up around 0.1% of Turkey's entire economy.

Therefore it is abundantly clear that even if Erdogan did not back down a trade war between the US and Turkey would have a negligible impact on the US economy but a significant impact on the Turkish economy.

Added to that if Erdogan wanted to start a trade war to support ISIL they'd be plenty of other nations queuing up to impose sanctions against Turkey. It only seems to be Obama's protection of Erdogan that is stopping them.

So simply put Obama's reasoning for allowing Erdogan to continue supporting ISIL just does not hold water.

I assume that Obama must be aware of this. Therefore I can only conclude that Obama himself continues to support ISIL.

14:20 on 5/9/16 (UK date).

Edited at around 18:45 on 5/9/16 (UK date) to add;

As the day has progressed we've got more lame and empty excuses from the US. The latest being that the US can't tell Erdogan to stop supporting ISIL because that would undermine the US and Turkey's unity in fighting ISIL.

That exposes a fundamental misunderstanding of both the English language and diplomacy as a concept.

Officially at least the US is opposed to ISIL. However Erdogan fully supports ISIL. Therefore the US and Erdogan cannot cooperate on the ISIL because their objectives are the polar opposite of each other and in direct conflict.

Therefore in order for the US and Turkey to cooperate on the ISIL issue one of two things must happen.

Either the US reverses its position and adopts Erdogan's position of supporting ISIL. With ISIL being wholly committed to the destruction of the US and its values along with the values of its traditional allies in Europe that is simply not possible.

Alternatively US brings Turkey around to its position of opposing ISIL. The process of bringing Turkey around to the US' position on ISIL is what is known as diplomacy.

As such Obama's conduct this weekend represents not only a complete failure of US diplomacy but a personal abdication of responsibility by Obama.

If experience has taught us one thing it is that when diplomacy fails in this way war becomes inevitable.