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President Obama has come home from the Group of 20 summit with essentially no more international support for a strike on Syria than when he left the U.S.

He spent the last three days in Sweden and Russia, lobbying U.S. allies on the sidelines and on the public stage, with little movement.

The conflict has presented perhaps the biggest challenge yet to Obama's multilateralist inclinations.

'A Hard Sell'

At a press conference Wednesday in Stockholm, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt showed why president Obama's coalition-building effort is an uphill climb. Reinfeldt stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the American president and said, essentially, they won't be shoulder-to-shoulder on Syria.

"Just to remind you, you're now in Sweden, a small country with a deep belief in the United Nations," he said.

But Russia and China are making sure the United Nations Security Council stays gridlocked. On Friday in St. Petersburg, Russia, Obama said fine.

"If we are serious about upholding a ban on chemical weapons use, then an international response is required, and that will not come through Security Council action," he said.

But wait, there's more: Everyone assumed that Britain was on board, until Parliament pulled the rug out from under British Prime Minster David Cameron.

Then on Friday afternoon, the White House released a joint statement from about a dozen countries that called for a "strong international response" to Syria's use of chemical weapons, but the statement did not endorse a military strike.

In St. Petersburg, Obama said he would keep pushing. "It's a hard sell, but it's something I believe in."

Multilateral Tendencies

This effort is personal for Obama. It means giving life to words he's been saying from the start of his political career.

"The words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable," he said in 2009, while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

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