It has now been 20 days since President Obama delivered a speech outlining his strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State. In the days since, the United States has launched a number of airstrikes inside Syria against the Islamic State and other Sunni terrorist targets. That Obama talked first and bombed after, thereby undercutting the benefit of surprise, was counterproductive.

Obama has often sought to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan; he wants to be a transformative president, albeit in pursuit of different principles. While conservatives lionize Reagan, there is also much about Reagan’s record to criticize. For example, Reagan’s courting of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein—falsely embraced as a moderate by both senior Reagan officials and the State Department—undercut both American strategic interests and its moral standing in the region. As I documented in my recent history of American diplomacy with rogue regimes, Reagan administration officials, for example, turned a blind eye toward Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurds so as not to antagonize the Iraqi dictator whom they sought to court.

In a way, history is repeating. Inside Syria, Islamic State forces have been advancing on and besieging Kobane (‘Ain al-Arab) for several weeks. Well-over a hundred thousand refugees have fled into Turkey to escape the fighting. Kobane is run by the Kurds and herein seems to be the problem. The Kurds of Kobane—and, indeed, of Syria more broadly—tend to support Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)’s imprisoned leader. Turkey labels the PKK, which waged an insurgency inside Turkey from 1984-2013, as a terrorist group and, out of deference to Ankara, the United States does too.

Syrian Kurds and the administration of Kobane, however, do not support terrorism. Rather, they seek freedom from both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s odious regime and the defeat of the Islamic State. Rather than separate from Syria, though, they seek the same sort of federalism that Iraqi Kurds enjoy. And while there is much to criticize about the PKK—a personality cult surrounds Öcalan—the PKK is really little different than the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq, which the United States embraces; among Kurds, the PKK simply has a reputation as less corrupt, and less nepotistic than the KDP.

In short, Obama has become so deferential to Turkey that he appears unwilling to lift a finger to stop a pending massacre against not only Kurds but also the tens of thousands of Christians and Arabs to whom they have given shelter. Obama has insisted that he approve every mission inside Syria. Hence, the unwillingness to target Islamic State forces waging their biggest battle against Kobane lies at Obama’s feet. While the Pentagon has said it has since launched airstrikes against Islamic State positions near Kobane, Kurds fighting the Islamic State say that the strikes targeted empty positions and did not hit or kill Islamic State fighters.

If the United States uses its airpower to repel the Islamic State assault on Kobane, Turkey may be upset. It’s time Obama, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and Secretary of State John Kerry ask, “So what?” After all, the United States should be upset that Turkey has supported Hamas; passively if not actively supported the rise of the Islamic State and its supply; embraced a US Treasury Department-designated Al Qaeda financier; and undermined sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program.

Like Reagan did when Kurds came under Saddam Hussein’s fire, the Obama administration appears determined to turn a blind eye to a massacre of Kurds (and Christians who have sought shelter among them). Michael Lynch, a Syria watcher and Pentagon strategic briefer, went so far as to diminish the importance of the Islamic State’s advance, and referred on his now locked twitter account to the flight of 140,000 refugees as simply “a tactical withdrawal,” never mind that Kurdish fighters continue to stand their ground to battle the Islamic State. The State Department, meanwhile, refused a visa last week for Salih Muslim, the leader of the Peace and Democracy Party (PYD) that runs the government in Kobane.

If Kobane falls, Turkey’s government may be happy. Given the choice between a federal Syria with a secular Kurdish canton, and a Syria wholly dominated by the Islamic State, Turkey chooses the latter. The United States should choose the former. If Obama’s strategic goal is really to “ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, then it should prioritize that mission above appeasing Turkey’s racist obsessions. That Obama does not understand the importance of saving Kobane not only demonstrates the strategic incoherence that infuses current American actions but also comes at the cost of thousands of lives.

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