CAIRO, October 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Arab experts expect the US to use the UN report implicating senior Syrian officials in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Al-Hariri to cow the Syrian regime.

"This will further tighten the noose around Damascus," Abdullah Al-Ashal, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister and an international law expert, told IslamOnline.net.

"The US will now step its pressures further to shake the Syrian regime to its foundation in order to get it under its thumb."

German judge Detlev Mehlis, leading an international team investigating the massive bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others in Beirut in February, said he found "converging evidence" of Syrian and Lebanese involvement and accused Damascus of blocking and misleading the investigation.

The 53-page report, released in New York on Thursday, October 20, said the probe was still incomplete.

In an accompanying letter to the report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan extended the mission of the team until December 15.

US President George Bush asked the UN Friday, October 21, for an "immediate action" against Syria.

Immediately rejecting the findings as "politically biased," Syria accused Mehlis of preparing a report to underpin Washington's rhetorical assault on the country.

"It looks really as if Mehlis was trying his best to get information linking Syrian and Lebanese to the killing rather than find an answer to the key question: who assassinated Hariri?" said Ashal.

"The best way to handle the situation is to lead the Syrian regime by the nose not to oust it," said Beni.

The Egyptian expert expected the US to push for international sanctions on Syria and the setting up of an international tribunal to try implicated Syrian officials, especially after some of them had been named by Mehlis.

An unedited version of the UN report said Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's brother Maher and brother-in-law, Maj. Gen. Asef Shawkat, were among a group of Syrian and Lebanese officials who "decided to assassinate" Hariri in mid-September 2004 and then planned the murder during a series of meetings in Damascus.

Those names were edited out of the final document.

Ashal, however, ruled out a US military action against Syria, opposed by heavyweights Russia and China.

"The US wouldn’t risk a new military adventure and would focus now how to weaken the regime," he said.

But Qasim Qasir, a Lebanese political analyst, said military action remains an option.

"The report is in effect creating an optimal war atmosphere for the wartime Bush administration," he said.

Newsweek recently reported that the military was considering plans to conduct special operations inside Syria, using small covert teams for cross-border intelligence gathering.

Akram Al-Beni, a Syrian opposition journalist, forecast a "bargain" between Washington and Damascus to ease the tensions.

"The Americans see eye to eye with the Israelis and the Europeans that the best way is to lead the Syrian regime by the nose not to oust it," he said.

Al-Beni maintained that the US fears that toppling the Syrian regime might put the Islamists at the helm, which harms its interests and Israel's.

"The only way out for the regime is to entrench democracy, de-muzzle the press and unleash freedoms."

Ali Al-Amin, a Lebanese political analyst, said the US does not have an "alternative" to the Assad regime.

"Washington would, therefore, lay more pressures on Syria to give concessions and serve the US interests in the region," he expected.

Citing senior US and Arab officials, The Times newspaper reported on Saturday, October 15, that the Bush administration has offered Syria normal ties in swap for cooperation over Iraq, Lebanon and Mideast peace, a British newspaper reported on Saturday, October 15.

The deal hinges on full cooperation with the UN inquiry, an end to alleged recruiting, funding and training of volunteers to join the resistance in Iraq as well as an end to support for Lebanon ’s Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups.