>>>From Tonight's speech...
>>>
>>>"This situation, therefore, represents a serious threat to our national security"
>>>
>>>and then
>>>
>>>"The Assad regime does not pose a serious threat to the security of our country, certainly no more of a threat than our country faces every day"
>>>
>>>
>>>Wow
>>
>>I agree, Kevin.
>>Obama's arguments for intervention have never made sense on any level, but especially not because of a threat to the US.
>>It looks as if Putin has pulled O's chestnuts out of the fire, tho.
>>I'm sure that O will send him a 747 full of Stoly for that one.
>
>I find myself wondering whether Obama and Putin cooked this up together in a way that let Putin step away from full support for Syria without losing face.
>
>Tamar

There are some interesting scenarios that fit in here.
One is that something is changing in Iran with the new president and Putin wants to get ahead of that.
Another is that Putin sees Assad losing eventually -support or no support- and then your scenario falls into place.
Another is just that Putin is smarter than we are and realized that futzing around in the Middle East is a lose-lose proposition better left to jerks like us.
Another (not as crazy as it sounds) is that the CIA promised him a big bundle of money.
Another is that Turkey, the Saudi's or perhaps even Israel had something to do with it - involving commerce- behind the scenes.

I think he's interested in issues like control of oil shipping, ports, gas pipelines, technology, raw material supplies etc.

It's just a guess, but I think that if we asked Russians old enough to know the difference - Putin included - except for some hardliners, most would agree that they are better off than they were before the Berlin wall went down and are happy to let us spend zillions deploying forces around the world as they used to do.