Syrian officials correctly estimated that the formation of an international tribunal to prosecute anyone discovered to be behind serial assassinations in Lebanon--many Lebanese blame the Syrian regime--would only lead to more instability in the country. As the U.N. moved toward establishing the tribunal earlier this month, a mysterious Islamic extremist faction called Fatah al-Islam launched a violent uprising against Lebanese authorities at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. Two weeks ago, Walid Eido, another anti-Syrian MP, became the latest victim in the serial assassinations, blown apart by a bomb as he left a seaside sporting club with his son.

Perhaps the most interesting and dangerous act of violence came Sunday with the car-bomb attack in southern Lebanon that has killed at least six United Nations peacekeeping soldiers, which I learned about as I arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh to cover Monday's four-way summit on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

That's one of the worst terrorist attacks directed against the blue helmets since they first arrived in Lebanon in 1978 in the wake of Israel's first invasion of southern Lebanon. The brazen murder of the peacekeepers suggests that it is more than an effort to derail the U.N. tribunal or take revenge for the move to establish it.

In fact, we are seeing a continuation of the war for control of Lebanon--broadly pitting Syria and its Lebanese allies against Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and pro-independence groups that are supported by the U.S.-- that many believe led to the 2005 killing of the most prominent victim of the serial assassinations, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri may have been killed, according to a U.N. probe and the testimony of his colleagues, because he decided to oppose the Syrian regime's determination to maintain its tight grip on Lebanese affairs by forcing the Lebanese parliament to extend the presidential term of its ally, former army commander Emile Lahoud. The Hariri assassination backfired in that case, given how it produced a mass independence uprising that compelled Syrian military forces to withdraw from Lebanon after nearly 30 years. The Hariri camp believes that Syria has been trying to reassert its influence ever since, through more assassinations, the Hizballah-led war with Israel last summer, an abortive move to stage a street revolt against Sinora's government and more recent explosions of violence such as the Fatah al-Islam uprising. The Syrian message to Lebanon and the world, in this view: Damascus can help keep Lebanon calm if given the nod to do so; or, otherwise, it can help keep Lebanon in perpetual chaos.

One reason that this is turning out to be Lebanon's third-consecutive hot summer is that the presidential election timetable once again is playing into the struggle. Maneuvering has begun in the race in which parliament must elect a new Lebanese president by the end of 2007. A pro-Syrian figure will help Damascus keeps its influence in Lebanon, whereas an anti-Syrian figure will give the pro-independence movement control over the presidency and the prime ministry, the two most important levers of state power.

The attack on the peacekeepers thus may hold several warnings. The first is that the pro-Syrian factions are capable of triggering a serious international crisis in Lebanon if they don't get their way. This has practical as well as symbolic value: although Hizballah claimed a "divine victory" in the summer '06 war, the cease-fire agreement created an expanded U.N. force in southern Lebanon that deprives Hizballah of its former freedom of movement there. If the peacekeepers get caught up in terrorist attacks, pressure from their home countries for a pullout will increase. Another warning may be that the pro-Syrian forces are capable of sewing chaos throughout the country simultaneously, as with the Fatah al-Islam fighting in the far north, the Eido killing in Beirut and the peacekeeper killings in the far south. Or in other words, if the pro-independence factions insist on taking over the presidency, the new president will struggle to govern a country that is ungovernable.

It remains to be proved in court that Damascus is pulling all these strings, but there is little doubt that the Syrian regime is intensely keen on quashing the U.N. tribunal as well as putting another ally into Lebanon's presidency. As one of Syria's close allies told me in Beirut earlier this month: "If you really want to support stability in Lebanon, look seriously at factors that can increase stability and not add to instability. Everybody recognizes the role of Syria in the neighborhood."

Source: Time Middle East Blog