Christian Science Monitor quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on how military gains in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant affect the calculus of the regime in Syria:
“ISIL was useful to the [Assad] regime and [Assad’s ally] Iran for the pressure it put on the Syrian opposition,” says Frederic Hof, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “But given what’s happened in Iraq, ISIL’s shelf life in Syria has expired.”