In fact, Obama was still taking flak for his handling of the situation in Syria as recently as Friday morning, when Oliver North, a contributor on Fox News, made a jab at the president during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, accusing Obama of drawing “phony red lines with a pink crayon.”

He isn’t making the mistake again. Thursday night Obama and Vladimir Putin had what The New Republic deemed “a very unproductive phone call” in which Obama emphasized resolving the situation diplomatically and coordinating with his European partners.

Obama, it’s clear, is very willing to sit back and let a larger network of forces take their toll on Russia. He isn’t the first American president to be confronted by provocations and military actions from Moscow but he is, as National Journal noted on Thursday, the first to have a broad range of highly effective nonmilitary responses at his disposal.