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.

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Not for no reason did Putin go with confidence into Crimea. Who's going to do anything about it? Obama? Ha! This is a guy who talked big about red lines in Syria, but folded quickly when Bashar Assad decided to test him, and needed Putin to bail him out. So now that Putin has decided to start indiscriminately bombing the defense forces aligned against Assad, exactly what force does anyone expect it to have when Obama "urges" Putin to stop? None. For one thing, Obama owes Putin. For another, Obama's history tells everyone who's paying attention that he lacks the nerve to stand up to any foe. So now we've got NATO forces gearing up for a potential conflict, but does anyone seriously believe Obama will order real action? The Russians certainly don't, which is why they've now decided to play this like a new Cold War, except that in the old Cold War they didn't dare behave this aggressively because they were actually concerned in those days about what U.S. leaders might do. That's over:

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The Syria situation has driven relations between the U.S. and Russia to new lows. Ties had already been strained by Putin's intervention in Ukraine and his persistent support for Assad. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the iced-over relationship "a new Cold War" in comments Saturday. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Medvedev cited recent NATO moves to bolster its presence in Eastern Europe as a counter to Russian aggression. "NATO's policy with regard to Russia has remained unfriendly and opaque. One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War," Medvedev said. "Almost on an everyday basis we are called one of the most terrible threats either to NATO as a whole or to Europe, or to the United States." Obama and Putin discussed Ukraine in their phone call Saturday, both the White House and the Kremlin said. "The President also urged combined Russian-separatist forces to fulfill their Minsk obligations, especially adhering to the cease-fire," the White House said, referring to the long-ignored Minsk peace accord that was agreed to a year ago.

Ah yes, the Minsk peace accord. It was clear even before the ink was dry that Putin had played Obama on that one, as the Russians laughed and marched on, leaving John Kerry to bluster that they'd better stop it . . . or else. Or else what? Or else nothing, of course. Obama won't do anything to make Russia pay a price for anything it does, and Putin knows it. He's free to bomb targets in Syria. He's free to continue his incursion into Ukraine. He's free to help Iran build the nuclear weapons Obama tries to insist will never be built. And as long as Obama is president, nothing will happen. By the way, this is the foreign policy Hillary supported 100 percent and now wants to tout as a reason she should be president. Even Putin probably doesn't want to spend four years listening to her screeching, but it's very much in his interests to see this delusional U.S. foreign policy continue.

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