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On Wednesday, Russia conducted military air strikes inside Syria targeting the Islamic State, but according to the Pentagon it was aimed at rebel forces battling embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

Russian air strikes continued on Thursday, with attacks inside the Syrian provinces of Idlib, Hama and Homs, far removed from ISIS location that are far to the east. These attacks are to solidify and support the government of Assad, instead of Moscow’s claim they are targeting the Islamic State.

As the attacks began on Wednesday with a three star Russian General issuing an ultimatum to the U.S. defense attaché located inside the U.S. embassy in Iraq, that Russian forces will begin to attack targets inside Syria and all U.S. forces need to be out of Syria air space.

All this was in the backdrop of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Obama conducting a 90 minute meeting discussing among other things the crisis inside Syria.

Putin has consistently articulated that Assad is the only bulwark against ISIS, and Obama has always maintained that Assad must go, and should go through a “managed transition” to a new government.

The unfortunate aspect the president has consistently failed to articulate how this should be accomplished.

With Russian military operations inside Syria, the United States has sent conflicting messages to Moscow and to our allies in the region.

First, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter muddled the waters with his bizarre press conference where he spoke in subdued tone over Russian military operation, and then he pivoted to discussion on the budget, and opening combat roles to woman.

This hardly signals strength to Russia, but most importantly Putin himself.

The other confusing aspect of this situation was Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, by allowing the foreign minister to dominate the press conference.

At one point Lavrov, kept insisting that everyone not pay attention to what is coming out of the Pentagon on who Moscow is targeting inside Syria.

Russian forces are targeting the remnants of the free Syria army which had been received training from the United States. This group as reported by the New York Times dealt Syrian forces a serious setback by seizing the city of Idlib, and later the entire province, advances that posed the war’s sharpest threat to the coastal areas where support for Mr. Assad is strongest. Russia has a naval station on the coast and has concentrated much of its recent military buildup there, so Thursday’s strike could be seen as a force-protection measure, taking out the insurgents closest to Russian installations before moving on to other operations.

The situation has now entered a more complicated phase as Reuters from two Lebanese sources reported that hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria in the last 10 days and will soon join government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies in a major ground offensive backed by Russian air strikes.

So far President Obama has not commented publicaly on the crisis, and his not commenting on the situation has our traditional allies nervous on the commitment of the U.S. in the region.

The president needs to get a handle on this situation and realize his strategy is not working.  Far too many people believe Obama is being played by Putin, the strange part of this the president doesn’t know it.