In the turbulence accompanying the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Syria last week of harboring Sunni insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

These are old charges, but Maliki had been personally championing a rapprochement with Saddam's old enemy's and had been in Damascus for talks only the day before his Aug. 23 accusation. His outburst abruptly reversed that effort.

Maliki demanded that Damascus hand over high-ranking Baathist chieftains he claims masterminded suicide bombings against government ministries in Baghdad on Aug. 19.

The attacks, in which 100 people perished, seriously undermined Maliki's efforts to portray himself as a strongman leader capable of maintaining security as U.S. forces withdraw.

Almost overnight, he went from being a shoo-in at the January elections to having to fight for his political survival.

Damascus denied the allegations and refused to extradite the suspects named by Baghdad. Both sides have withdrawn their ambassadors, but Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoyshar Zebari says that relations "have not yet reached the point of no return."

However, analysts believe that Maliki has little choice but to stick to his claims of Syrian support for the Sunni militants in a bid to burnish his tough-guy image and bolster domestic popularity ahead of the elections.

Maliki upped the ante on Monday when Iraq's state media broadcast a videotaped "confession" by an alleged al-Qaida operative who not only alleged direct support by Damascus for the bombers but that it allowed al-Qaida to run training camps on Syrian soil.

The turncoat, who identified himself as a Saudi named Mohammed Hassan al-Shemari, claimed he had been trained by Syrian intelligence agents in one of these camps to carry out attacks in Iraq.

Shemari echoed allegations made by one of the men arrested for the bombings, a former Baathist security official, who declared on state TV Aug. 23 that he had attacked the Finance Ministry with Iraqi Baathists based in Syria.

But Shemari's claims took this much further by threatening strategic objectives sought by Washington as it seeks to disengage from Iraq.

His allegations of Syrians training al-Qaida jihadists, if substantiated, could wreck any hope of a rapprochement between Baghdad and Damascus, and almost certainly result in the violence worsening as the elections approach.

Worse, it would dash U.S. hopes of luring Syria away from its strategic alliance with Iran, seriously setting back Washington's efforts to weaken Iran and push forward peace prospects between Syria and Israel.

Still, Jane's Intelligence Weekly said that Maliki has more to gain by toughing it over the escalating confrontation with Syria.

"In the longer term, should bilateral relations deteriorate further," it concluded, "this will weaken Maliki's ability to crack down on anti-government militants based in Syria, undermining Iraq-based security efforts."

So far, no concrete evidence about who was behind the Baghdad bombings has emerged. Iraqi Sunni leaders and even some of Maliki's Shiite rivals are looking eastward for the real culprit.

Certainly Tehran would have much to lose if Damascus were to break off their 30-year alliance when Israel is threatening pre-emptive strikes against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. For one thing, Iran would lose vital links through Syria with its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Tehran's apparent support for the new breakaway Shiite alliance now ranged against Maliki is seen as further evidence of Iranian meddling.

The prime minister is a Shiite whose post-Saddam political rise was aided by Shiite Iran. But he established a relationship with the Americans and sought to put distance between himself and Tehran to assert Iraq's Arab identity.

Earlier this month The Washington Post quoted a senior Iraqi intelligence officer as warning that without the Americans on the ground, Iraq would be a "colony of Iran" within five years.

"This is an exaggeration," says Shahir Shahidsaless, a Canadian-Iranian analyst, "but it's true that while U.S. forces are increasingly becoming spectators in Iraq, Iran is systematically increasing its influence … 2010 will almost certainly mark the official rise of Iran as a foreign power in Iraq."

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