Putin is a stone cold dictator, but he is very sophisticated about it. And here you see how deftly he manipulates public sentiment and perception. Who wouldn't

Putin is a stone cold dictator, but he is very sophisticated about it. And here you see how deftly he manipulates public sentiment and perception. Who wouldn't want peace and cooperation? Using tomahawk diplomacy against Syria was never a good idea. And "unbelievably small" strikes against Assad's regime was just a stupid threat to make. Chemical weapons are only a tiny part of the many very serious and relevant (even to Americans) geopolitical issues at stake in the Syrian civil war right now. A handful of bombing runs would be unlikely to improve the situation, even in regards to preventing the use of chemical weapons. But I can guarantee you that Putin cares not the slightest about the citizens of Syria. His interests are with maintaining the Assad regime, as a geopolitical ally, and extracting money from Syria through arms trade. But now he has an opening to rub America's nose in a very public foreign policy failure. The president doesn't want to get involved in Syria but he set a "red line", which has been crossed repeatedly, and now he's forced into an enormously uncomfortable spot. And while the US wriggles out of this snare Putin will take as much geopolitical advantage out of the situation as he possibly can. Which will be a lot. Because he is very skilled at this game and everyone else (the US, France, even the UNSC) has already put their cards out on the table for everyone to see.