Akst: Kofi Annan gives up on Syria

Kofi Annan, a man who must surely rank second in patience only to Job himself, has resigned his role as UN and Arab League peace envoy to Syria, which is obviously in the midst of a full-blown civil war. Can you blame him? Nobody was paying any attention to his perfectly reasonable peace plan, Syrian President Bashar Assad certainly won't listen to reason, and the regime's twin defenders, Russia and China, won't let the UN do much of anything anyway.

Activists say that perhaps 20,000 people have been killed, and the dissidents, predictably, are growing more violent in the face of the regime's vicious onslaught. A video posted on the Internet showed what appeared to be the summary execution of men who, rebels said, were members of an Aleppo family with ties to the regime. Aleppo has been a battleground for days.

Assad's days appear to be numbered. It's tragic that Russia, in particular, with its close ties to Syria, doesn't have the sense to facilitate his exit. Unfortunately, it may already be too late; as Annan's resignation seems to imply, the terrible violence may have to play itself out.

Pictured above: Kofi Annan, Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League for Syria, speaks during a press briefing, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. (Aug. 2, 2012)