Historian perfectly explains why Trump's letter to Erdogan is so concerning

During a bizarre press conference on Syria, president Donald Trump claimed to have written a “very powerful letter” to the Turkish president Erdogan that he claimed “was never giving a green light” to massacre the Kurds.

While it’s arguable that moving your troops out of the region knowing full well the neighbouring country have been amassing troops in order to kill their longstanding enemies, who happen to be your allies, could seem like a green light it's fair to say that he didn't specifically tell them to do it.

Mr Trump assured reporters that his powerful letter took a strong stance against it, and offered to release a transcript (which has obviously worked out pretty well in recent weeks).

But Fox Business beat him to it and putting it mildly the contents of the letter are somewhat bizarre and concerning.

While the world took a minute to absorb the fact that this was a bona fide letter from "the leader of the free world" to another head of state and not somebody impersonating Trump formally scolding Donald Jr for burning ants with a magnifying glass in 1985, a historian of US foreign policy called Brad Simpson drafted a Twitter thread highlighting, beyond the obvious, what made the letter so disturbing.

The University of Conneticut professor wrote:

With that in mind, this doesn't seem too far from the money.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, BBC Turkish have been told by "presidential sources":

President Erdogan received the letter, thoroughly rejected it and put it in the bin.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimate at least 300,000 people so far have been displaced by the terrifyingly brutal conflict, while the death toll continues to rise.

More: Trump said there’s ‘a lot of sand’ in Syria and the woman behind him had an incredible reaction