HOW long is a piece of string? That is about as good a response as there can be to the question of when the “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, partial though it was, will be deemed to have broken down entirely. The fighting has abated to a surprising and welcome degree since the ceasefire came into force on February 27th. But violations are now on the increase, which suggests that a new crisis has begun. Since the first week in April the Damascus-based regime of Bashar al-Assad has been bombing areas south of Aleppo. They have got away with this in part because the opposition there is dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, one of the terrorist groups excluded from the ceasefire, along with Islamic State (IS). But recent air strikes have also hit civilian areas there and beyond. On April 19th bombings by Mr Assad’s forces killed 50 people in two towns in Idlib province, including one that is known for its resistance to extremist groups.

Opposition violence has risen too. On April 18th a group of rebels announced a new offensive in response, it said, to government attacks. That was followed by reports of rebel assaults in Latakia province, a regime stronghold. Rebel mortars and snipers killed at least 16 people in Aleppo over the weekend, according to the Syrian Observatory, a monitoring group.

Not surprisingly, this has put the kibosh on peace talks in Geneva, which got under way again only this month. The High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the body representing the non-jihadist Syrian opposition, said on April 18th that it was stepping away from the table over the rising violence and also because of the unacceptable proposals for a political solution in the country being discussed.

These ideas, dubbed “dumb” on Twitter by Robert Ford, a former American ambassador in Damascus, include putting in place three vice-presidents from the opposition to serve under President Assad. Like parliamentarians and other civilian officials, Syria’s deputy presidents have no power compared to that of the president and his security forces.

Indeed, the flaw in both the ceasefire and the political talks is that they duck the main problem: that it will be hard to find peace in Syria with Mr Assad still in charge. America and the UN have become willing to compromise on Mr Assad’s fate in order to concentrate on IS, despite ever more evidence of industrial-scale torture by the regime, including sodomy, burning using welding torches, and castration that is being documented by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, an independent investigative body working on Syria.