Obama 'urges,' but U.S. has no leverage to get Russia to stop bombing Syrian targets

One of the first things Barack Obama did as president was back out of a commitment George W. Bush had made to install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Why? Because Vladimir Putin wasn't happy about it, and whatever was wrong wuth U.S.-Russian relations was caused - in Obama's view - by Bush's bellicosity. Obama would deploy "smart power" by sending Hillary Clinton to see the Russians with one of those dumbass buttons from a Staples commercial, and that would reset everything just wonderfully. Yeah. That worked great. Just like when Obama whispered to Dmitri Medvedev - not knowing that the nearby microphone was live - that he should let Vladimir know to expect plenty of flexibility as soon as Obama got past this last pesky election, which was of course requiring him to pretend to have any backbone whatsoever in dealing with the Russians.