[Trumpinator]

You made me look up the Bloomberg article. This paragraph below shows the Obama was kept in the dark by his own State Dept and that the State Dept is run by a bunch of amateurs.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-10/russia-s-syrian-air-base-has-u-s-scrambling-for-a-plan

The State Department had already begun pushing back against the Russian moves, for example by asking Bulgaria and Greece to deny overflight permissions to Syria-bound Russian transport planes. But the president didn't know about these moves in advance, two officials said, and when he found out, he was upset with the department for not having a more complete and vetted process to respond to the crisis.

[lodi90]

The kenyan micromanages everything out of the White Hut. Everything is supposed to go through the NSA at the WH.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Or State Dept. thought that they can handle it better by leaving Obama out of the loop. Past track record shows that he has not been really helpful in stabilizing the situation. Although State Dept. is not the shining example of competence, they thought that Obama makes thing worse for them if he meddles in.