Word: hariri
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...Hariri assassination could set off wider reverberations. The possibility that Syria was to blame was reason enough for the Bush Administration to turn up the heat in its campaign of pressure against a regime it has long considered a festering sore in the region. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top officials last week ticked off a list of grievances against the Baathist regime of President Bashar Assad, from Syria's destabilizing presence in Lebanon to its alleged support of insurgents in Iraq to its funding and protection of terrorist groups like Hizballah, Hamas...
Even before the hit on Hariri, U.S. patience with Damascus was dwindling. Syria's support for militant groups that oppose Israel, as well as its close alliance with Iran, has long been an irritant to Washington. But reports of Syrian meddling in Iraq have provoked the most rage. For a time, U.S. diplomats thought they were making headway in persuading Damascus to crack down on the money and manpower the Bush Administration charges is flowing across Syria's border to insurgents in Iraq. But a Pentagon official told TIME that the U.S. believes Syrian military officers went to Fallujah...
...insurgents across the border into Syria. The U.S. teamed up with France, long an influence in Lebanon, last fall to push through a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for all "foreign forces"--meaning Syria--to quit Lebanon. Damascus ignored it. French President Jacques Chirac, a personal friend of Hariri's, consoled the family in Beirut last week and may be more inclined to put real muscle behind the resolution. Without the broad backing of Europe, Washington has little leverage of its own over Syria. The Administration imposed punitive economic sanctions in May 2004 and could ratchet up the bans...
...three decades Syria has kept a tight grip on its client state, exercised through the 14,000 military and intelligence forces still based around Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. But opposition to the Syrian presence has grown. Damascus made a serious miscalculation last August when it manipulated the constitution. Hariri resigned in protest and quietly backed the U.N. resolution sponsored by France and the U.S. calling on Syria to depart. Since then, Hariri appeared to be joining political forces with the opposition to dominate parliamentary elections scheduled for May, in what would have amounted to a referendum on Syria...
...prefers an orderly Syrian withdrawal that would give international and Lebanese forces time to fill the security void. But the emotions stirred up by Hariri's death have raised the prospect of a far messier outcome. Many Lebanese believe the killing was an attempt by Damascus to halt the snowballing challenge to its hegemony. Hariri's death has galvanized the anti-Syria opposition. "There has been a real and dramatic change," says former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel. In Damascus, Syrian citizens wondered whether Lebanese rage over Hariri's death might provoke insurgent attacks against Syrian troops, which could reignite Lebanon...