The Syrian Route?

Evariste of Discarded Lies has linked to a piece in MEED which talks about Syrian-Russian relations. The post in question can be found here. Upon reading this I am left with many questions, and I don't like the possible answers. It appears that Russia has decided to cause even more problems for the US, by interfering directly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I can only surmise that the US has seriously mulled plans for a strike against Syria, and Russian has decided to make it clear that it won't tolerate such an action by the US. I suspect that the US is being blackmailed by Russia into not attacking Syria, saying that any US strike against Syria would push Russia into supporting Syrian moves to destabilize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even further, most likely through Hizb'allah.