Lakhdar Brahimi will greet May 31 with mixed feelings — his resignation as the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria takes effect then. After two years of constant efforts to try and bring warring factions together, Brahimi must be exhausted.

The reality is that Brahimi had an impossible task — but even then he did manage to bring the Syrian government and the opposition together for two rounds of international talks in Geneva, both of which, however, ended in failure. The reality is that no matter how hard he tried, Brahimi was always on a losing cause — not for the lack of effort on his part, but because the international community as a whole has washed its hands of the three-year conflict.

On the ground, opposing factions could not be convinced to adopt a ceasefire and holster their weapons to respect the sanctity of either Eid Al Fitr or Eid Al Adha.

When the international community tried to raise the plight of the Syrian people at the UN Security Council, the initiatives were vetoed by Russia, as it acted to protect its geopolitical interests and those of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

And when the flood of refugees became a torrent of human detritus, there was no consensus on delivering relief or opening humanitarian corridors. There is no failure for Brahimi. The failure belongs to the international community.