This reflects President Bush's disenchantment with Syria's attitude towards Lebanon and Iraq.

Washington has consulted its allies in an inter-agency search coordinated by Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser, The Financial Times said in a Washington-datelined report.

The U.S. is also said to be considering military strikes on the Syrian border in response to its alleged support for Iraqi insurgents, sources close to the U.S. administration were quoted by Financial Times Washington as saying.

"They are tasking inside and outside the administration with finding an alternative. They would like to find someone to give them a soft landing," said a former official quoted by FT. "They would probably accept a military figure but it would be very hard to identify someone to step in and work with the U.S."

However, the newspaper said another U.S. official in Washington had asserted that the administration's policy was aimed at "behavior change" rather than a "regime change" as far as Syria is concerned.

Bush, in a major speech last week on the war on terror and the ideology of Islamic radicalism, denounced Syria and Iran as "outlaw regimes" that acted as "allies of convenience" to the militants.

The U.S., Bush said, would not make a distinction between those who committed acts of terrorism and those that supported them. Syria and Iran "deserve no patience from the victims of terror."

Flynt Leverett, analyst at the Brookings Institution think-tank, believes the Bush administration is looking at mounting cross-border military operations into Syria. He said that the objective was to put pressure on the regime and get the message to the Syrians inside or outside the government that it was time to "dump" Assad.

A U.S. official told the FT last week Syria had made the "unwise choice" of "allowing its territory to be part of the Iraqi battlefield."

David Welsh, US Assistant Secretary of state, who will arrive today to Beirut said on Monday, during his visit to Cairo that US expects Mehlis report to be very critical of Syria's behavior.

Source: Financial Times, Naharnet, Ya Libnan