It seems more and more like something cobbled together without much thought as to how it might work in practice.

Indeed, the people who are paid to explain to us how it might work seem to be as confused as we are. Take State Department Spokesman Mark Toner. Asked whether the ceasefire requirements of the agreement would apply to Turkey, which has for the past week been bombing US-allied Kurds in Syria, he was unable to give a clear answer beyond the following confusing bit from Monday's press briefing:

Well, Turkey is a member of the ISSG, the stakeholders group. Ultimately, to be a part of that, you have – you've committed to implementing the cessation of hostilities. So again, it – we've talked about this a lot – it's not just – we certainly point a finger at Russia quite often, and other members who are, we believe, taking counterproductive actions on the ground in Syria, but it's incumbent on all members of the ISSG to buy into a cessation of hostilities.

How's that for clear diplomacy?

There are even more troubling facts and questions emerging.

According to the "cessation of hostilities" agreement, the ceasefire would not apply to members of ISIS, al-Qaeda affiliates, any group on the UN list of terrorist organizations, or any rebel group that does not affirm to the US or Russia that it intends to be a party to the agreement. Groups falling into the first set of categories could according to this new deal continue to be bombed by the Russians, Syrian government, and the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.

In the above mentioned State Department press briefing Monday, several members of the press corps pointed out the difficulty in determining on the ground which groups might be eligible to be bombed and which ones are to be avoided. A key issue is the rarely-until-recently-spoken fact that many of the "moderate" Syrian rebel groups in fact have formally or informally integrated themselves into the operational command structure of al-Qaeda's Nusra Front.

Even the Washington Post reported on this problem just days ago:

One of the many problems to be overcome is a differing definition of what constitutes a terrorist group. In addition to the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, Russia and Syria have labeled the entire opposition as terrorists.

Jabhat al-Nusra, whose forces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups in the northwest near the Turkish border, is particularly problematic. Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat al-Nusra off-limits to bombing as part of a cease-fire, at least temporarily, until the groups can be sorted out. (emphasis added)