WASHINGTON (AP) — “We’ve kind of hit a wall,” President Barack Obama commented last week on his way to Russia. He meant his relationship with Moscow, but the remark came to apply as well to other leaders abroad, lawmakers at home and Americans at large, all standing in the way of what he wanted to do about Syria, which was to attack it.

Just days later, military action is on hold, a diplomatic effort to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons has some steam and Obama no longer looks so terribly alone. The potential way out took shape with an episode akin to palace intrigue: Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin pulling up chairs in a corner of a stately room at the summer home of Peter the Great, after a very late night of fireworks and lasers etching the St. Petersburg sky. And it grew from there.