On the negative side, the regime has become more conscious of the power in its hands.
But Blair later acknowledged that he had come down against the paper's option of "toughening containment", ie on the side of regime change.
But it is the military intervention of the party on the side of regime forces in Syria that has aroused the most intense hostility against it in the region.
"If we overtly take sides, the regime could well react with a massive and bloody crackdown on the demonstrators using the pretext that they are acting against an American-led coup," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Time may be on the side of the regime's opponents eventually, but the Beijing government has confounded all outside observers with its surprisingly nimble responses to the rapidly changing technologies and trends of the global information revolution.
But ISIS is just one side: the Syrian regime is the other side of this terror.
He'd gone to pick up his salary from the regime side.
Mr Davutoglu said the YPG would only be allowed to take part "on the regime side".
But the balance is not on the side of the regime.
"As successful footballers, we'd been protected from that side of the regime but now we saw the dark side.
