To date, there has been nothing similar to the Contact Group plan that was hammered out in the summer of 1994 by representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, and implemented the following year in Dayton, Ohio, after months of on-the-scene diplomacy. In Syria, the only diplomatic process is in the hands of the courageous, if beleaguered, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has understood – better than many analysts of this latest international outrage – that any lasting political settlement must not be a triumph of one side or the other.
迄今为止，虽然在叙利亚进行了数月的现场外交行动，我们依然未能看到任何跟1994年由英国、法国、德国，俄罗斯和美国分别派代表发起，随后那年在美国俄亥俄州代顿市开始执行的联络小组计划（Contact Group plan）类似的东西。目前该国唯一的外交进程由勇气可嘉——同时也身陷重围的——前联合国秘书长科菲·安南操持着，而他比许多关注这场最新国际暴行的分析者们更清楚的一点，就是任何有持续效力的政治和解都不会是一方压倒另一方的胜利。