It was no surprise that, after speaking in private for two hours in Northern Ireland, President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin looked “tense and uncomfortable,” or, as the pool report put it, “serious and unsmiling.” Not only did the meeting come on the heels of a year and a half of Russia cynically ratcheting up anti-American sentiments—and harassing Obama’s ambassador—in the country, or growing tensions over divergent foreign policy, it was also soured by a blast of Sunday news. First, Edward Snowden leaked information that, in 2009, the NSA had spied on former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev while he had been at a G20 meeting in London (I'll refrain from calling that a "revelation"). Then came allegations that Putin had pinched the Super Bowl ring of Patriots owner Bob Kraft.
But what really killed the mood at the G8 Summit was Syria.
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