Why give him the carrot?

We were talking India, not Putin.
But to answer your question, you offer a carrot to get him to the table in the first place.

What, do you guys think that if we sh1t on him the entire time that Putin would show up? He needs an incentive.

You folks get way to hung up on the frippery like red carpets and miss the real symbolic significance of things: The flyover. That was with a B-2 and F-35s. The very aircraft that Israel and the US used to decapitate Iran's Russian-supplied air defense network.

When it comes to global airpower, the US is, to use Bill Maher's phraseology, is the biggest swinging d1ck on the planet. And Putin got a REAL reminder of what we're capable of if he pisses us off. He also got a reminder that if we decide to do something, there isn't anything he can do to stop it.

That's symbolism. Not the red carpet crap the media and the democrats wet their pants over. Please don't rejoinder with the "it really gave him a boost at home..." stuff because according to you he's only got a year and a half left to fund the war...rah-rah stuff for his propaganda machine won't really matter then, will it?

When part of your strategy is diplomatic isolation, you don't invite the head of state of the country that you're trying to diplomatically isolate to a freakin' summit unless they offer you some concessionary positions as a condition of the summit.

Oh, please. If you want something from somebody, you have to communicate with them to get it.