I don’t think we know the role of each person in this process. For instance, we don’t know what Obama and Putin said to each other at the G20. We don’t know what kind of back-channel discussions have been going on. (My hunch is that there was a lot of back channel, and that’s why the draft agreement came so quickly.) However it happened, it’s a better outcome than one might have expected even a week ago. I have a number of criticisms to make of Obama — he’s way too quick to give in to conservatives, he’s way too close to the big money people, he’s way too inclined to pick economic advisers who are part of the problem — but I don’t see that this time he’s done much to criticize.
I don’t think we know the role of each person in this process. For instance, we don’t know what Obama and Putin said to each other at the G20. We don’t know what kind of back-channel discussions have been going on. (My hunch is that there was a lot of back channel, and that’s why the draft agreement came so quickly.) However it happened, it’s a better outcome than one might have expected even a week ago. I have a number of criticisms to make of Obama — he’s way too quick to give in to conservatives, he’s way too close to the big money people, he’s way too inclined to pick economic advisers who are part of the problem — but I don’t see that this time he’s done much to criticize.