There was a moment Friday when the leader of the free world explained the awe and sympathy his job provokes among colleagues. At the end of a Group of 20 summit in Russia, President Obama recounted a recent conversation he had had with another head of state, as the question of whether the United States would soon attack Syria loomed over the gathering. “I’m a small country, and nobody expects me to do anything about chemical weapons around the world,” Obama quoted his fellow leader as saying. “They know I have no capacity to do something, and it’s tough because...
