Monday, June 16, 2014

Nicholas Blanford has information: exclusive

The official family hagiographer of Rafiq Hariri has exclusive information.  Apparently, both the Syrian and Iraqi regimes are falling within days, weeks, months, years: "The impact of the stunning seizure of large tracts of northern Iraq by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) last week could have significant consequences for the Syrian regime’s ability to hold onto power. Despite a series of battlefield successes in western Syria over the past year, the Assad regime barely has sufficient forces to hold its newly seized territory let alone retake the entire country.

... diplomatic sources say they have information that senior Iraqi government officials have sent their families to Amman in Jordan, suggesting the prospect of a panicked collapse similar to the rout which allowed ISIS to seize Mosul last week. The ISIS campaign, therefore, appears to be morphing into a full-blown Sunni uprising which is a far greater threat to the Maliki government and Iraq’s territorial integrity than an audacious advance on Baghdad by a few thousand ISIS militants." (thanks Basim)