They say the Iranians are also funding, training and arming recently-formed local Popular Committee militias, separate from the shabiha militia network, seeing them as a structure they could continue to rely on if the regime should collapse and fall back on the Alawite-dominated areas on the north-west coast and its hinterland.
If (when) this happens, there will be no third party to fall back on.
Will you to stay the course or fall back on your over developed need to react?
In situations like this the current fad is to fall back on a fail-fast, fail-early culture.
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The company has figured out which vendors it will fall back on if the worst happens.
As they describe the situation, they usually fall back on some sort of illness metaphor.
They are tempted to fall back on the region's saving rates, which are famously high.
If respect is eroded, he may find he has few bonds of loyalty to fall back on.
And the result is, when something happens to them, they have nothing to fall back on, absolutely nothing.
Everyone is making things up as they go along, often with no set procedures to fall back on.
Too many businesses, however, fall back on lip service instead of developing those insights and acting on them.
So Lady Ashton has had to fall back on the more familiar tools of diplomacy, development and defence.
"I believe swimming can't support you your whole life and I want something to fall back on, " she says.
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At first glance, Davis is not a "flawed" candidate, so the Republicans don't have that to fall back on.
"If we had to buy an expensive plot of land it would fall back on the taxpayer, " Mrs Jacobs said.
People like those folks who were in New Orleans, they don't, 'cause they don't have anything to fall back on.
They had a lot of money coming in, a lot of resources to fall back on, so Tammy didn't worry.
If individuals don't have the right education in place, Heller says, they're apt to fall back on their bad ways.
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When all else fails, Williams and Co. fall back on that tried and true technique of Flower Power peer pressure.
And come the summer of 1917, marked by a disastrous Russian offensive, the Provisional Government could only fall back on coercion.
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Then, once they get home, they fall back on the same bad habits that got them hospitalized in the first place.
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When all else fails, Williams and Co. fall back on that tried and true technique of Flower Power -- peer pressure.
Many bruised early comers now fall back on the line that China is a long-term investment: eventually their foresight will be rewarded.
Sometimes the sellers fall back on the old fashioned system of barter.
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Stiffer competition and changing tastes might squeeze earnings at home, and the company lacks a thriving global business to fall back on.
We fall back on the default, and the default is: Do Something.
If the taxpayer was not successful with those arguments, he or she could not fall back on the protection of the amnesty.
We don't have much of a nest egg to fall back on.
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And if they make a big bet and it goes sour, they have their 2% of assets under management to fall back on.
Located in a nervous neighborhood, Singapore will be tempted to fall back on its security-seeking ways, but economically this would offer little comfort.
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