Finally, a cease-fire has been declared in Syria. No, not between the regime and the Free Syrian Army, or between Al-Qaida and the Free Syrian Army. It’s between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghadadi, and the Falcons of the Levant Brigade, headed by Abu Issa al-Sheikh.

But here’s the rub: Al-Sheikh heads the Shura Council of the Islamic Front, an organization of religious groups that sometimes works with the Free Syrian Army and sometimes makes its own rules. The paradox is that the agreement between the Falcons and the Islamic State doesn’t oblige the Islamic Front. It’s a local agreement that lets the Falcons evade the siege imposed by the Islamic State. That’s something, at least.

And here’s another complication: The Islamic State has been considered an inseparable part of Al-Qaida and ostensibly should fall under the aegis of Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. But this week Zawahiri announced that the Islamic Front has no connection to Al-Qaida; only the Al-Nusra Front is considered part of the organization.

Zawahiri is angry at the commander of the Islamic State because the latter didn’t obey his instructions to operate only in Iraq and not strike Al-Nusra members in Syria. Even the efforts of the Saudi mediator Abdallah al-Mohseini to reconcile the two groups failed.

But the Islamic State’s commander doesn’t care what Zawahiri says about him; he decides independently where to concentrate his forces. He operates in both Iraq and Syria.

Thus Syria has turned into a state of gangs, militias and organizations, each in charge independently or with another of a piece of ground while waging war with the Syrian regime. They open local fronts against each other. The result: a significant rise this year in casualties from two or more organizations or militias firing at each other.

Considering this state of affairs, it’s hard not to doubt the international efforts to achieve a cease-fire, at least between the Syrian army and the organizations. It’s hard to assume that any peace conference will purge Syria of gang control. No side, neither the Free Syrian Army nor the regime, can promise that Syria won’t remain a state of militias.

The scenario the West and Russia are hoping for is cooperation between the Syrian army and the Free Syrian Army. The United States, which learned a painful lesson in the Iraq War, wants to avoid a repetition of the stable-cleaning policy that smashed Saddam Hussein’s regime and army. The new Iraqi government didn’t have an army to stand up to the terror groups and ethnic militias.

But cooperation between the Syrian army and the rebel army requires the fall of President Bashar Assad or the subjugation of the rebel army to a military command headed by Assad. Both options seem delusional. At the moment no force – whether local or international, alone or together – can assure either scenario.

It would be cheaper to feed the refugees and help the countries hosting them than to get embroiled in a military campaign that can’t ensure a reining-in of the militias. By the same token, it would be easier to view the Syrian crisis as another civil war that has nothing to do with the rest of the world than to open an international military front.

Under these circumstances there’s no point in determining, as American intelligence did this week, that Assad came out ahead in the chemical weapons deal, or to predict that Assad will survive the war. Such conclusions are already irrelevant.

Syria is beyond profit and loss. It is led by a front, one side of which contains the world powers that are struggling with each other for control. The other side contains organizations and gangs, some working independently, others under the protection of the powers.

Syria is no more than a ball of rags waiting for one power to give up. No power, whether local or international, can achieve cooperation between the Syrian army and the Free Syrian Army.