Lebanon slaying dims chance of U.S. overture

Iran and Syria deny involvement, but the U.S. is skeptical.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- It's another body blow for Lebanon -- and for the whole Mideast, already reeling from the Iraq war.
The assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian politician puts sharp focus on the role Syria and Iran are believed to play in Lebanon's growing troubles. The slaying thus seems likely to dim any chance the United States would consider an overture to either country to help calm Iraq or seek a broader Mideast peace.
President Bush made clear his views Tuesday, accusing Iran and Syria of trying to destabilize Lebanon, though he stopped short of blaming them for the killing of Lebanese Christian leader Pierre Gemayel.
If the West does finger Syria in the slaying, the Bush administration would be highly unlikely to approach Syria for help on other issues.
Syria is sure to deny it is involved. Both it and Iran quickly condemned the slaying, but the United States was skeptical: Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns noted that the Lebanese group which Syria and Iran support, the radical Hezbollah, has been in a tense political standoff with the U.S.-backed government Gemayel belonged to.
Threats from Hezbollah
Hezbollah has, in fact, been threatening to bring Lebanon's government down, he noted.
The leader of Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliament majority was even more pointed: "We believe the hand of Syria is all over the place," Saad Hariri said in a CNN interview, after breaking down at his colleague's death.
That puts the assassination squarely at the center of the most dangerous currents sweeping the Mideast today -- the rivalry between countries and groups allied with the United States such as Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon and those allied with Iran such as Syria and Hezbollah.
That rivalry came to the fore when Hezbollah fought Israel this summer -- and it has been rattling the region ever since.
"In some ways you can read this as upping the ante," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
Worsening war
Most urgently for the United States, the rivalry is worsening the Iraqi war. Both Syria and Iran are believed to play destabilizing roles in Iraq: The United States has long contended that both allow money and men to join the fight there.
Syria denies it plays a spoiler role, but most in the West believe it could help calm Iraq if it chose to.
That has led many, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to urge the West to reach out to Syria and Iran and make some type of pragmatic deal with them, in exchange for help on Iraq.
The influential Iraq Study Group, due to give Bush recommendations on Iraq soon, is widely believed to favor such a plan. Its Republican co-leader, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, has made clear his belief in the value of "talking to your enemies" and has long been a key player on Syrian diplomacy.
Broad strategy
Blair says the outreach to Iran and Syria should come as part of a broad new Middle East strategy that would include resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tuesday's murder, he said, "underlined once again the absolute and urgent need for a strategy for the whole of the Middle East."
But the idea of talking to Syria was controversial within the Bush administration even before Gemayel's murder, said Steven Simon of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
"There's a real reluctance to confer tacit recognition on a regime perceived to be murderous and illegitimate," he said.
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