“Many people say there won’t be a stable Lebanon without regime change in Syria,” Jumblatt told a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute after visiting the White House today. The Druze leader said the world “needs to change Syrian behavior.”

Jumblatt met Bush in a bid to gain more political and military aid for Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government, but he stressed that any efforts to underpin Beirut’s democracy should also involve the support for forces opposing Baath Party rule in Syria.

Jumblatt and other members of Siniora’s government blame Syria for a rash of political assassinations in Lebanon, including the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005. The Siniora government is currently working with the United Nations in an effort to establish an international court that would try those charged in Hariri’s murder. Jumblatt said he’s confident the legal process will lead to indictments of senior Syrian officials and will cause Assad’s government “to be shaken.”

That drew a round of applause from the AEI audience. The neoconservative think tank has been among the strongest supporters of the Iraq war and U.S. attempts to promote regime change in Middle East countries like Iran and Syria.

Jumblatt said he pressed American officials to increase political and military aid beyond the roughly $1 billion the U.S. pledged last month at a donors’ conference in Paris. He said more money is needed to deal with Hezbollah, the Iranian-sponsored Shiite militia that controls much of southern Lebanon. “In seeking assistance, I need more political and military support against the indirect Syrian occupation” of Lebanon, Jumblatt said

Sources: wsj.com/washwire