This...

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/09/14/door-number-two/

Syria was always a menu where all the food sucked.  Letting Assad violate the international regime against WMD was untenable.  But doing "something" wasn't necessarily better, unless that "something" was incredibly crafty and lucky.  I recall "Shock and Awe" which was going to decapitate the entire Hussein regime.  I recall it not being decapitated.  Something about a deck of cards.

When Kerry left an opening for Russia to walk through, I don't know whether that was completely an accident or whether it was hinted at at the G-20 summit or what.

What is important, as mistermix notes above, is that Obama was flexible.  I seem to recall in the last days before Shock and Awe in March 2003, Hans Blix and various sources in Iraq were frantically trying to get the word out that there was a negotiated settlement at hand.  Hussein allowed the inspectors in and Blix accurately reported that there was no WMD program left.  There were even rumors of Saddam leaving with a golden parachute.

But Cheney and Dubya had their war on, and nothing was going to stop that from happening.

Up until Monday, Kerry sounded every bit like Donald Rumsfeld running around talking about strikes and such. And so it is tempting to say that Obama was saved from the more bellicose members of his own establishment.

And it was not just Obama who was flexible.  Putin himself moved his hard line, too.

All the food on the Syria menu was bad.  So Putin and Obama went to a new restaurant.

And for all the emo-progs who were wailing that Obama was just like Bush?  DIAF.