>the lack of concrete support for the rebels in Syria, notwithstanding the brutality of the Assad regime or widely-accepted evidence of chemical attacks. If the US were actually intent on toppling that regime it has had ample opportunity to advance that goal, but has chosen not to do so.
Obama, who is hardly a hawk, was politically unable to act due to citizens understandable war weariness. Putin has no such restraints.
Quite, but since he campaigned on skepticism about war from the outset of his presidential run (ie opposing the Iraq war and pledging to extract the US from it), I'm questioning the notion that he would have engineered the civil war in Syria to begin with.
Obama, who is hardly a hawk, was politically unable to act due to citizens understandable war weariness. Putin has no such restraints.