With regards to the violence in Syria Kofi Annan's six-point plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council, asks Syria to:
commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilize the country.
It then says the Syrian government should "cease troop movements" and "begin pullback of military concentrations". It adds:
Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties […]
The Syrian government accepted the plan while the rebels and the exiles of the Syrian National Council rejected it. The Syrian government rightly sees the Annan plan as a. a commitment both sides have to make and b. not as an immediate demand to pull back all its troops.
So when the U.S. Secretary of State Clinton claims that Assad has ignored the plan she is trying to give that plan a different meaning than it has and outright lying. She also wants Kofi Annan to set out a timeline for the steps in his plan which would then of course be used to create and set ultimatums.
But no government can pull back its troops when the security situation does not allow for that. It would be irresponsible to leave the population without protection from rebels and foreign fighters which have dedicated brigades for torturing and beheading and are massively using indiscriminate IEDs. As long as the rebels are fighting and killing Syrian people the Syrian government will have to fight back.
As a not funny April joke the U.S. led "Friends of Syria" countries met today in Turkey. Despite the military defeat of the rebels and further splintering in the alleged representatives of the opposition they are doubling down towards their aim of destroying the current Syrian state. In their final statement they are creating several working groups within the exile Muslim Brotherhood controlled SNC to make plans for setting up a new one. Does anyone remember one Ahmed Chalabi who once was also engaged with such planing?
As far as we know there is no shortage of food or medicine in Syrian. But the U.S. announced that it will give more money for thus unneeded "humanitarian relief" in Syria. The Syrian SNC opposition promptly announced that it will now start to pay its rebels. That will certainly be some "humanitarian relief" for those terrorists. But was there ever a real revolution which needed to pay its revolutionaries?
The democracy hating absolute monarchies from the Gulf also announced more money to bribe soldiers and officers of the Syrian army into giving up their duty.
One delegate described the fund as a "pot of gold" to undermine Assad's army.
Additionally the U.S. said it will give the rebels military communication equipment and we can be sure that someone will take care to get them more weapons. That together will create a full fledged mercenary army paid for by foreign powers to overthrow the Syrian government.
Will that be successful? I don't think so. But it will guarantee more bad times for the Syrian people.