Syria, Russia and the United States. The media loves to have tension and conflict, and since relations between Putin and Obama are strained, at best, any event which highlights the tension and helps sell media products is front page news. What has to be considered is that 69 years ago on February 10, 1946,Syria and the USSR signed a secret agreement whereby Moscow wold give Damascus diplomatic, political and military help to bring the new country (just freed from French control) into the international arena. Four years later, the two countries signed a non-aggression pact, and the USSR began to supply Syria with weapons. In 1971 the two countries agreed that Moscow could use the Syrian port of Tartus to support her naval fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.Relations have continued to improve under the current president, Bashar Al Assad, who succeeded his father in 2000. Moscow has invested heavily in Syria's infrastructure especially in gas and oil production.
The "Arab Spring" in Syria began shortly after Mubarak's fall in Egypt in February, 2011. Thousands of students took to the streets to oust the Assad government, which was renowned for its cruelty. America stood by and did little. Washington was afraid that were Assad ousted, there would be no government and Syria would become a bastion for terrorists. Or,if the Syrian government moved toward a precipice, Tehran would come to its aid, and America could end up with a war against Iran, not a war the White House wanted. Obama also feared that if Assad continued to lose power, he would encourage Hezbollah and Hamas to be more confrontational with Israel, again an alternative the White House wanted to avoid. 
Since Obama was unwilling to commit to America leading a movement for change in Syria, the White House looked to the United Nations Security Council for help. However, Russia, threatened to veto any UN measure restricting Assad's regime. Russia's continued support in the UN undermined America's effort at regime change in Damascus. 
The rapid development and expansion of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, brought the radical Islamic movement in Syria, thereby threatening the Assad regime. Moscow has no desire to see a Syria controlled by ISIS and has begun to send in troops, men and money to bolster the Assad regime. Washington is caught. She had been supplying weapons to forces opposing Assad for the past three years. But the White House also wants to put an end to the ISIS efforts to have a Syrian-Iraqi caliphate. While both Putin and Obama are opposed to ISIS, and both realize that the solution is to aid the Syrian army's efforts to destroy ISIS, the end game is the problem. Moscow has a leg up on dealing with 
Syria, her near 70 year relationship, while America has historically little to do with the entire Middle East except to think of her as a oil well, and to try to limit Soviet and later Russian influence in the area. Now the question is: will the White House accept an Assad Syrian government as the price to pay for working with Russia to destroy ISIS. For once ISIS is defeated, Assad will have sufficient military supplies to destroy the American supported rebels. The ball is in Obama's court.