Kofi Annan must strike a deal with the devil to end the sickening atrocities being committed by the Syrian Army. But the devil Annan has in mind is Russian President Vladimir Putin, not his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad.
That is what Annan, whom I first met in Africa four decades ago, seeks to achieve by pursuing a desperate strategy centered on the Russian president-in-perpetuity.
The former U.N. secretary general is no naive Boy Scout who believes in Assad's worthless promises. He is prolonging his stymied U.N. peacemaking mission to give Assad enough rope to hang himself.