AN "AGREEMENT" ON SYRIA – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  Grand Admiral Kerry, our secretary of state, has negotiated some kind of agreement on the Syrian civil war, but no one is exactly sure what it is.  From The New York Times: 

MUNICH — Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, announced that they had agreed on the delivery over the next few days of desperately needed aid to besieged Syrian cities, to be followed by a “cessation of hostilities” within a week on the way to a more formal cease-fire.

“We have agreed to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities in one week’s time,” Mr. Kerry said early Friday morning, after all-day meetings. “That is ambitious.”

“The real test is whether all the parties honor those commitments,” he said, sitting next to Mr. Lavrov, the two men doing their best to appear cooperative after weeks of trading accusations over the accelerated Russian air campaign that has given new support to the government of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Oh, those Nobel Prizes wait in the wings.

If executed, the agreement, forged by the International Syria Support Group, would mark the first sustained and formally declared halt to fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, early in the Arab uprisings. But even a formal cease-fire would be partial — it excludes the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and the Nusra Front, both designated as terrorist organizations by the United Nations — and highly fragile.

COMMENT:  Whaa..?  It excludes ISIS?  That's like Japan surrendering on the USS Missouri in 1945 and declaring, "Of course, this doesn't include the Army." 

I'm not a betting man, but I'd be willing to put a symbolic bet on the notion that this will fall apart within weeks.  But hey, if it lasts more than a month, Kerry could think of running for president again.

February 12, 2016