Easy for an armchair pundit or even someone who’s in Congress to claim that Turkey should recognize and admit to the Armenian genocide. It’s a different story as president. You have to take into account that Turkey is a critical country re: Syria, Iran, and the Middle East in general. Not only is it a NATO member, but it is directly affected by what’s going on in neighboring countries. We have to tune our discussion and rhetoric accordingly.

The Armenian genocide is nearly a century ago.

We are trying to prevent the ongoing democide in Syria. 300,000+ have already died, and millions more displaced. There’s no sign the conflict in Syria is going to end anytime soon. Stopping it from becoming even worse is key. That means holding your nose and overlooking the Armenian genocide in order to get the current Turkish leaders on board with coalition efforts to stop Assad.

All the while, the fact remains that if we attack Assad, we inadvertently assist ISIL; and by attacking ISIL, we assist Assad. Neither is good, so we again have to go with the least bad option. Containing Assad while going after ISIL.

But the body count will continue to pile up, and it’s just a meaningless statistic to people like Chuckles (he of the floor pooping 150+ IQ, just exploring different views tweedledom).