Kofi Annan has stepped down as the UN-Syria peace envoy. To which the rest of us reply: "What took you so long?"

The Annan plan isn't working for the simple and practical reason that neither side wants the situation to freeze in place along "armistice lines" -- lines that could very well be used to divide up the country into buffer zones of neighboring states. They want an end to the conflict that results in their side taking it all.

Bashar Al Assad wants his old stomping (and fingernail-pulling) grounds back. Meanwhile, the jihadists who seem to dominate the Free Syrian Army want to enclose as much territory as possible within their Caliphate -- and they know they've got the momentum.

Nadia Khoury is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist