Sign "O" the Times

Northern Iraq continues to disintegrate:

More than 500,000 citizens fled in fear as extremist militants overran Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, the International Organization for Migration said Wednesday.

The group, whose teams have been monitoring the plight of those caught in the midst of the onslaught, said the violence had resulted in “a high number of casualties among civilians.”

The northern city’s four main hospitals are inaccessible because of fighting and some mosques have been converted to act as clinics, the IOM said.

To be clear, this is a direct result of spillover from the prolonged Syrian Civil War, and of the Obama Administration’s complete lack of interest in successfully negotiating a Status of Forces agreement with Baghdad.