I don't believe this has yet been pointed out;   people seem far too interested in grinding their own axes, especially hypocritically asserting that the US has a duty to bomb Syria, or on the other side the knee-jerk anti-military reaction-- or senseless attempt to blame Israel for everything-- that we've come to know and love on Mudcat.

But I heard another story --on the BBC world service, I think--which supports my theory that Syria is the anti-Libya.    And for an obvious reason:    Putin in particular, as a big Who fan (not the Doctor), feels he was burned severely by the outcome of the Libyan crisis and is determined to not let that happen again.    Neither Russia nor China tried hard to prevent the international attack on Russia's client state, Libya under Gaddafi.   Now we have another Russian client state, Syria under Assad.    This time Russia will do all it can to prevent an attack, especially a multi-nation attack.   So far Putin's plan is a smash hit--and he even gets to play the voice of reason, while portraying Obama as the classic warmonger.

Now all he has to do is make sure the negotiations now starting go nowhere. Piece of cake.    And of course when the negotiations do collapse there is no way Obama will ever be able to convince the US public to support an attack on Syria by US missiles or something similar.

And there is even potentially something for Obama in this--which we see already;   he is claiming that without US pressure the negotiations to put Assad's chemical weapons under international control would never have started. Never mind that all sides aleady recognize these negotiations have virtually no chance to succeed.

At least Obama gets a chance to back off from his stupid and hugely unpopular plan to attack Syria, and instead concentrate on other issues---everything else. If Obama has as much sense as I think he has, he will start to push immigration reform hard--this is a a win-win for him (and for the US) and a lose-lose for the GOP.

Ironically enough, Putin has not only helped himself but pulled Obama's chestnuts out of the fire. So everybody wins--except of course the victims of Assad's chemical attacks.   Will there be more chemical attacks in the future?    Who knows?   But my guess is that is up to Putin;   when he says jump, the only question for Assad will be how high.