Bashar Assad has just scored a major victory without spilling a drop of Syrian blood. That triumph was in Crimea. Of course the Syrian dictator had nothing to do with Putin’s decision to invade. And unlike the White House and Israel, the Kremlin is not about to listen to any advice from its deeply dependent Syrian ally.

Nevertheless, there must have been major celebrations in the presidential palace when Russian special forces, in their ludicrous unbadged uniforms, began the takeover part of another sovereign country. The response from the Obama’s White House was as predictable as it was weak. Major sanctions that had been threatened instead turned out to be minor inconveniences for a bank favored by the regime and a few Kremlin cronies.

The biggest punishment however was the collapse of the G8 Summit scheduled for Sochi, still basking in the success of its Winter Olympics. The Americans decided instead that the original G7 countries would meet in Brussels. Russia — the latest admission to the group of leading Western economies — would not be invited.

Assad could not have been more pleased. The widening diplomatic rift has secured Moscow’s continued support for his dictatorial regime. It has also bolstered his ally Iran’s chances of pressing on with its nuclear fuel enrichment program to weapons’ grade level. Russia is now in no mood to support any new pressure on the regime in Tehran. Indeed, it now seems set to defy the US-led sanctions regime and give direct support to the ailing Iranian economy.

So where does this leave Assad? He has used chemical weapons again. All his poison gas armaments were supposed to have been identified and defused, before being shipped out the country for destruction. So where did the new chemical shells come from? Clearly the regime had not been straight with UN inspectors. Nor has it honored the timeline to ship out these deadly armaments. And for good measure, Assad’s people are once again blaming the latest poison gas attack on the rebels. It is not difficult to see the thinking here. Damascus will claim that in the final analysis, it would be crazy for it to give up deploying its deadly poisons if its opponents are still using them.

Thus more time will be wasted as investigations are carried out and findings disputed. Meanwhile no movement on chemical weapons will take place. The only certainty will be that the bloodshed will continue.

Maybe that’s not the only certainty. It is surely also now established that the Obama administration is not going to get involved in Syria in anything other than its current pusillanimous manner. With the latest chemical attack by government forces, Assad has once again crossed the line that the US president drew in the sand. Yet there is no chance of the threatened cruise missile strikes to smash key regime targets. Obama’s bluff has been called. He is no longer seen as representing a credible threat to the Syrian government. The only diplomatic chance that Washington ever had of acting against Assad was through working with the Russians.

Now Putin’s Kremlin is involved in a major geopolitical push-back. It has done with the collapse of the old Soviet military power and its extensive empire. It has done with military debacles like the loss of the nuclear submarine Kursk. It intends no more Kosovo’s, where fellow Slavs in Belgrade were bombed into submission while Moscow sat by helplessly. Syria was an early part of that pushback. Crimea has been another. Iran and its nuclear weapons program will doubtless prove yet another. Whatever the US champions, Russia will challenge.

In an ideal world, a radical review of Russia’s role in the Middle East Quartet, to boost its support for the Palestinians and toughen its approach to the Israelis, might make a difference to the peace process. However it seems inevitable that in such circumstances, Washington would cling ever more tightly to its slippery Israeli ally.

Internal disputes among the rebel forces ranged against Assad have brought the conflict to stalemate. Indeed many fear that, with the help of Hezbollah, the government is slowly regaining territory. It matters not that economically and socially, much of Syria is in ruins. As long as Iran keeps pumping in money, men and resources and Russia continues the large flow of armaments, Assad can pretend he leads a country afflicted by no more than a troublesome terrorist incursion.

The deeper the row between Moscow and Washington, over Crimea and Ukraine, the more Assad will rejoice. Indeed, the Syrian government has so far, never had such an easy victory.