Compounding the drama, as background noise you have US Secretary of State John Kerry bluffing that Plan B is the partition of Syria anyway. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov once again had to call for order in the court.
So what do you do? You're a Washington-approved "moderate rebel". So you re-label yourself as FSA. Will you fool the task force set up by the US and Russia -- hotline included -- to monitor the "ceasefire"? Well, at least you've got a shot. The "ceasefire" mostly applies to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), unspecified "moderate rebels" and the Syrian Kurds. Everyone must de-weaponize by midnight this Friday.
If you've skipped the deadline, you may be in serious trouble. Because for the Russians, that qualifies you as an ally of Salafi-jihadis. You will be bombed to smithereens. And there's nothing Uncle Sam can do to save you.
This positively Dadaist development is what passes for a road map to peace in Syria -- even though odds are on Washington and Moscow will be seeing red on virtually every noon and cranny of it.
What this might spell out though goes way beyond Syria; it's all about the White House, the Pentagon and NATO's spectacular demise as exceptionalist arbiters and executioners -- using Shock and Awe, R2P (responsibility to protect) or straight-up regime change -- of geopolitical tangles.
Or is it?
The vague terms of the "cessation of hostilities" do not explicitly specify that Washington, London and other members of the US-led-from-behind "coalition" should stop bombing Syrian territory. And there's nothing about suicide bombs and chemical weapons routinely used by any outfit, from ISIS/ISIL/Daesh to "moderate rebels," against the civilian Syrian population.
So there's got to be some heavy-duty horse-trading between Washington and Moscow behind all the shadowplay. And none of it has leaked, at least not yet.
Daddy Stole My Invasion
Meanwhile, the much-ballyhooed joint invasion of Syria by Turkey and Saudi Arabia is not going to happen because His Master's' Voice vetoed it -- as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was forced to explain. He essentially admitted that the invasion would need the agreement of all members of the US-led-from-behind coalition fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Unfortunately, they are scared to death of being decimated by the Russian Air Force. So they might as well cozily revert to the "cessation of hostilities" charade.
On what really counts -- the Syrian theatre of war -- the most pressing issue is whether the SAA will finally be able to control Aleppo and environs, continue to rule in Latakia, and manage to configure Idlib as a Saudi remote-controlled Army of Conquest enclave cut off from almost all sides and depending solely on Ankara, which for its part won't dare a face-to-face with the Russian Air Force.
In return, Ankara shall desist from its Syrian invasion and that dream of a 10 km "safe zone" inside Syrian territory to keep away the Kurds and facilitate the re-weaponizing of its Islamist proxies. Ankara's favorite Jabhat al-Nusra, by the way, remains active north of Aleppo, and in the Turkmen regions of Latakia and Azaz (in the Turkish-Syrian border).
What Team Obama seems to have finally understood -- and "seems" is the operative word -- is that neither ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor al-Nusra could ever "unify" Syria; assuming 60% of Syria's population is Sunni, what matters is that over half are secular and do support Damascus against all those Turk/Saudi-supported Salafi-jihadi crazies.
Will this all be enough to assure the success of the "cessation of hostilities" charade? Hardly. Keep calm and carry on (watching). Plan B remains Return of the Living Dead material.