International Pawn

"Now, despite President George W. Bush's support for Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon, there is concern among some here that Lebanon could become a victim of U.S. strategic interests -- the need for Syrian help with Iraq -- yet again.

"We understand Syrians are turning toward cooperation with U.S. in terms of Iraq," says Karam, "so we'll wait and see what happens."

But Karam says the U.S. is already benefiting from Syrian assistance in tightening control over its southern border, where foreign fighters are reportedly entering Iraq to attack U.S. forces and Iraqi government and civilian targets.

U.S. State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez disagrees with that assessment.

"Rather than seeing action and response to our concerns from [Syria], we've only seen more acts of what I would call regional destabilization," Vasquez says. "
Kevin Sites