In other words, Mr Obama would have emerged from this one-to-one meeting having to admit that he had gained absolutely nothing from an obdurate Mr Putin. So he decided to get his own snub in first, and to try to make it seem like an international humiliation for Russia – when in reality Russia has made the US look impotently furious over the Snowden affair. This presupposes, of course, that we take the White House statements over Snowden at face value. Suppose we assume for a moment that, in foreign diplomacy, nothing is as it seems. Does the administration really want to take Snowden back to America to be put on trial for espionage or treason?