You didn’t think Vladimir Putin would make it that easy, did you?

With the U.S. seemingly backing down from its Kremlin-opposed plan to launch airstrikes against Syria and John Kerry heading to Geneva for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, Putin evidently felt comfortable enough to spike the football with an op-ed in the New York Times today. Most of the piece is a retread of Russia’s arguments against military intervention and skepticism of U.S. chemical weapons claims, but the kicker comes near the end when the president takes a shot at the concept of American exceptionalism: My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal. The op-ed may have upset the digestive tracts of some U.S. politicians, but the White House dismissed it as “irrelevant” and praised Putin’s chemical weapons proposal as the “best possible reaction.” At the very least, Putin’s op-ed was the statement of a leader feeling pretty confident about his role in the crisis. In an article accompanying the op-ed, the Times’s Steven Lee Myers writes that “Mr. Putin has eclipsed Mr. Obama as the world leader driving the agenda in the Syria crisis" and quotes analyst Ian Bremmer saying, “Putin probably had his best day as president in years yesterday.” From an international perspective, it’s hard to disagree. But back home, things aren’t looking quite so great for him. In fact, it hasn’t gotten much attention thanks to Syria, but Putin is actually coming off a major political setback this week.