German Foreign Minister Heiko Josef Maas could not find a cheaper way to justify his country's decision not to support Greece's proposal to the European Union to ban arms sales to Turkey than the one he gave.

The ban, he said, would be "strategically wrong."

The exact opposite is true because (1) Turkey is not behaving like a real NATO member. And (2), because there is a real fear that the weapons it buys from the EU will fall into Russia's hands.

And that's not enough: Maas goes even further – he blames the United States for Turkey buying the S-400 missile system from Russia.

To be precise, the German Foreign Minister has adopted the same language as Ankara. That is, that the unfortunate Turks were forced to beg Putin to sell them this system, since Washington refused to sell them the equivalent.

But even so, what kind of alliance would this be when each member state resorted to its adversaries when the alliance refused to comply with one of its demands?

Even going so far as to purchase a weapons system that poses a lethal threat to the United States and its allies?

The right position is that of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and especially of Robert Gates, who believes that the issue of S-400s and Turkey's actions in the Eastern Mediterranean (Greece and Cyprus) “must have costs.”

In particular, Gates, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense in two administrations calls for the "suspension" of Turkey's NATO membership or other "punitive steps."

So the German excuse for not imposing an arms embargo on Turkey is a cheap one. It does not stand.

Obviously there are other reasons. Like the electoral power of the large Turkish community in Germany and the large volume of trade between the two countries.