Progress was made in this week’s United Nations Summit in New York. But the thing that seems to have come out the clearest, is that the world is divided on what should be done to counter the growing disaster in Syria.

Russia’s Vladimir Put did not achieve every single goal he thought he would at the summit, but he ticked a large number of boxes. His remarks about Syria cut to the quick, and he sharply rebuked the United States for, what he termed, it had created.

“Do you now realise what you have done?” he asked. US President Barack Obama’s speech was much flatter and he actually seemed deflated by the fact that Putin seemed to have come up with the goods while he did not.

Putin’s rhetoric also seems to have diverted attention away from his land-grab in the Crimea and also seems to have positioned Russia as a potential leader in a coalition to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

It is, of course, no coincidence, that Russian ships are sailing into the Mediterranean and that the Russian parliament has given a unanimous OK for Russia to use its army overseas. Obama also said that it was wrong to profile Muslims as being the biggest threat to the world. British Prime Minister David Cameron said that while this was true, the “politically correct” West needed to acknowledge that the biggest clear and present danger was Muslim extremists.

Obama made it clear that the US found it very hard to stomach a coalition to prop up the al-Assad government. But what is the alternative? We should have learned our lesson from Libya. Post-Gaddaffi, there was chaos as the country spiralled out of control. But what about Syria? It is clear that if Assad falls, then Islamic State will sweep in a take over the whole country, prompting sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims which will descend into a regional bloodbath – possibly even drawing in arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Many believe that even if Assad is propped up, Syria has become so divided that it will never be able to function as a whole again. Experts say that the most likely outcome would be that the ruling Alawite sect would carve out an enclave from Damascus to the Coast. The already autonomous Kurds might finally get their dream of an independent Kurdistan and the minority Druze would move out to the south.

There is room for Moscow and Washington to cooperate more closely against the militant group if they can bridge the still-gaping rift over Assad, who the United States says must go in a political transition but Putin has talked up as a crucial ally in the fight with IS.

There is no doubt that Putin is in ascendant. For years he has silently and slowly rebuilt Russia’s capabilities and now he is ready to challenge the United States to be the central figure in a global coalition. “An international one, such as the one needed to fight Hitler,” as Putin himself put it.