The stress is on the word 'almost' because, after all, he fought tooth, nail, knuckle-dusters, boots, innuendos and a fair number of outright lies in order to get the job. The fact that he is now exposed as a sort of black Jerry Lewis of a president is entirely his own fault. Even so, you can see the intractable problems he faces as he vacillates gently this way and that depending on the wind of "events, dear boy, events" that blow across the eastern Mediterranean. In Syria the Arabs are doing unspeakable things to each other and the only tiny (but important!) positive to be taken from it is the certain knowledge that they would have no hesitation in doing the same, if not worse, to us if they ever have half a chance. The Russians have picked their man in the fight and are backing him to the hilt. This, in the immortal words of Sellars & Yeatman, is 'A Good Thing' because it will, and already has, cost them a fortune which, as gas prices begin to ease with the introduction of 'fracking', they can ill afford. Of course, if Obama had been shrewder he might have tried to outbid the Russians in backing Assad because it is an undoubted fact that Assad is better, much better, from our point of view than the various religious jihadists who plan to take over. Even if he failed in the bidding war it would have forced 'Vlad the Impaler' to up his bribery and cost him even more! In the meantime, Assad and 'Vlad' have kicked the sand in his face upon which he had drawn his big, bold, red line. Gonna need more paint, Mr. President!
Alas, poor 'Barry', brought up in a simple black and white world with absolutely no gray areas, he lacks the intelligence and subtlety of, say, a Talleyrand or a Bismarck. Thus, his soppy posturing over Islam has led him to back the Muslim Brotherhood against the Egyptian generals who were very much in his pocket up until a few months ago. As everyone knew, the Egyptian army is far and away the strongest organised force in the country and once they decided to act the result was foregone, er, well, it was foregone to everyone except 'Barry' and his nitwits in the State Department - what the CIA was telling him I do not know - what he wanted to hear, probably!
Sorry, 'Barry', but that makes it 2-0 against you - could do better, one feels!
