Turkey has made a decision to not only refuse to join the “broad coalition” against ISIS that President Obama promised Wednesday night is more than just a major slap in face for Obama and America.  It also presents an obstacle to the success of the president’s promised “degradation and destruction of the caliphate. As The Wall Street Journal notes:

Was it only a week ago that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel listed a "core coalition" of 10 countries willing to join the U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State? Since then Britain has categorically ruled out military strikes in Syria, while Germany has ruled out any use of force. Now Turkey is bugging out.

The Turkish abdication goes a step further than the Brits or Germans. Not only will Ankara take no military action, it will also forbid the U.S. from using the U.S. air base in Incirlik—located fewer than 100 miles from the Syrian border—to conduct air strikes against the terrorists. That will complicate the Pentagon's logistical and reconnaissance challenges, especially for a campaign that's supposed to take years.

Turkey is behaving more as an opponent than an ally:

…the reality [is] a Turkish government that is a member of NATO but long ago stopped acting like an ally of the U.S. or a friend of the West. Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone declared this week that the Turkish government "frankly worked" with the al-Nusrah Front—the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria—along with other terrorist groups. Ankara also looked the other way as foreign jihadis used Turkey as a transit point on their way to Syria and Iraq. Mr. Ricciardone came close to being declared persona non grata by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government last December.

This disaster is a deep embarrassment for bothe President Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton, who both went out of their way to proclaim the virtues of their diplomacy that made Turkey such a great friend.

This American Thinker article from July cites the close relationship that Obama and the lady in waiting, Hillary Clinton, thought they had with the Turkish leader.

"As far as the relationship between the United States and Turkey is concerned, according to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ankara is amongst the best and staunchest allies of America. On the one hand, Ms. Clinton was so excited about the idyllic relations between Barack Obama and Erdogan’s Turkey that she gave a joyous high five to the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davitogly, during their meeting in Abu Dhabi back in 2011.  

On the other hand, in one of his statements Mr. Obama indicated that he considers the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr. Tayyip Erdogan, as one of the five international leaders he considers to be his best friend. 

The most important part of the problem is that while the prime minister of Turkey is playing a shrewd politically correct game with his influential American friend, who hears from him everything he would like to hear, Erdogan’s strategy in Syria is completely different."

As Ed Lasky notes, the basis of the friendship between Erdogan and Obama is based on other common interests than Syria: “He is one of Obama’s best friends because he is anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and anti-American.

Hat tip: Mike Nadler