WASHINGTON - This is how a superpower ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Syrians weep. Assad mocks. Putin laughs. And Americans rub their eyes in disbelief.

Who would have thunk it? The issue of Syria - yes, Syria - suddenly has unified America, Russia and even Syria itself around a common project: giving U.S. President Barack Obama a face-saving pretext to back away from his misguided, unpopular and potentially disastrous plan to bomb Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Obama dug his hole a year ago, when he declared that Syrian chemical-weapon usage was a "red line" issue. Once evidence emerged suggesting that Assad's regime had gassed its own citizens, including a large-scale attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, Obama had no choice but to start beating the war drums.

Barack Obama had stood by for two years as the carnage in Syria mounted, rejecting the counsel of his cabinet secretaries to intervene. Then, after some 100,000 deaths and millions of refugees, Bashar al-Assad stood accused of using chemical weapon to kill some 1,400 people. President Obama has declared that this method of killing is different in kind, not merely degree, and therefore warrants a military response to preserve American credibility - his "red line" threat from 2012 - and to send a message to other tyrants.

So there is now a case for armed intervention. But the bombing plan proposed by Obama would not aim to change the balance of power in the civil war, would not seek to precipitate the fall of Assad, would not seek to seriously degrade Assad's military force, and may not even seriously degrade his chemical weapons stockpile. The Syrian campaign would be for only a matter of a few days, and would be "small," so that everything could return to normal forthwith. Obama ran for president damning the "dumb wars" of George W. Bush. His Syrian strikes are aimed at teaching Assad to be smarter about how he massacres his people. It's war as pedagogy.

Facing a lack of enthusiasm for this weekend seminar by cruise missile, Obama is eager to share the blame with Congress. But it now seems unlikely that Obama will get his authorization. Facing what is in Washington a real calamity - a weakened president unable to gain support for military action, ahead of midterm elections - the debate here has been disgusting in its crass political calculation. When Hollywood made "Wag the Dog" during the Clinton administration about waging war for partisan advantage, it was thought uncomfortably close to the truth, as Clinton bombed Iraq at the height of the Monica Lewinsky sex and perjury affair. There is no personal scandal now, but still one hears people discussing the bombing of Syria as if the U.S. President, as opposed to the Syrian people, were to be the true beneficiaries.

In seeking to extricate himself from a confused policy of his own making, Obama has been taken to school by Vladimir Putin. The idea that Assad's chemical weapons stockpile, in the middle of a civil war, would be tranquilly handed over to genteel United Nations inspectors in a deal brokered by Syria's principal patron, is laughable. So desperate though is Obama not to be mocked for lacking muscularity, he is willing to play along with the joke.

The best outcome of the president Syria's policy is that nothing will change, save that Assad will show better manners in killing his own people. The more likely outcome is that Assad will be strengthened by his ability to face down Western leaders; the dominant Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis will grow stronger; and Russia will return to being a Middle East power, something it has desired since Anwar Sadat turned his back on the Soviet Union 40 years ago.

In short: a disaster for the United States, a disaster for Iranian-threatened Israel, a disaster for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States who wish to contain Iran, and a disaster above all for the Syrian people, who now face not Assad alone, but Assad supported by a newly-strengthened Putin.