Hezbollah is part of the new coalition government headed by Saad Hariri, the slain prime minister's son and political heir, who in December had to bend the knee to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose regime he long held responsible for his father's death Feb. 14, 2005.

Now Hariri is under growing pressure from Damascus to ditch his Christian allies in the Western-backed March 14 movement -- named after a massive anti-Syrian rally in Beirut by the Hariri family's allies a month after the assassination -- and embrace Hezbollah.

Syria's restoration of its domination of Lebanon followed a rapprochement -- of sorts -- between Damascus and Washington.

U.S. President George W. Bush broke with Damascus, part of his infamous "axis of evil" with its ally Iran, after the Hariri assassination. His administration accused Syria of aiding insurgents in Iraq and arming Hezbollah and hinted strongly that it was behind the Hariri killing, something Assad has repeatedly denied.

President Barack Obama has taken a different course and sought to engage Damascus in hopes of luring it away from Iran.

There is little sign Assad is prepared to do that. But whether he does or not, it's clear the Syrians are back in charge in Lebanon, historically part of Greater Syria and widely seen as its "economic lung."

One likely result is that a U.N. tribunal investigating Hariri's death won't publicly hold Syria accountable. That dismays many Lebanese, particularly Saad Hariri, who see it as a U.S. betrayal in the interest of geopolitical expediency amid the region's ever-shifting political landscape.

Hariri's acknowledgment of Syrian tutelage followed a 2009 reconciliation between Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of his father and opposed to Syria's alliance with Iran.

Hariri had no choice but to follow where his patron went. But he's not the only one to have had to come to terms with the Levant's harsh political realities.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a one-time pillar of March 14, also had to make the pilgrimage to Damascus to make peace with Assad.

Jumblatt and Hariri shared a common bond: Both blamed Syria for the demise of their fathers. Jumblatt's parent, the leftist Kamel Jumblatt, was assassinated March 17, 1977, after he broke with Damascus.

But Jumblatt has a history of changing sides, adjusting his political position to the prevailing political winds.

He had moved toward the Americans before Hariri's death but with the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran's resurgence, he concluded he was backing the wrong horse.

His defection from Hariri's camp followed an invasion of Sunni-dominated West Beirut and Jumblatt's mountain stronghold by Hezbollah's Shiite warriors May 7, 2008. More than 100 people died in a week of fighting that almost ignited a new civil war.

Hezbollah acted in response to a move by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Rafik Hariri's right-hand man, to dismantle its private telecommunications system, a key component of its military machine.

Jumblatt's 180-degree turn and reconciliation with Assad was particularly revealing because it was engineered by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, with whom Jumblatt had feuded for years.

As the March 14 movement disintegrated under remorseless Syrian intrigue and subterfuge, so has the so-called Cedar Revolution it had spawned that sought sweeping reforms in Lebanon's sect-driven politics.

Both Hariri and Jumblatt have had to publicly acknowledge Hezbollah's status and its right to possess a large arsenal of weapons, which makes it militarily stronger than the Lebanese army.

This has been a major source of friction within Lebanon, where all other militias were disarmed after the civil war. Hezbollah claimed it needed its arms to resist Israeli occupation, which effectively ended in May 2000.

Now Hezbollah holds Lebanon's future in its hands, with Damascus and Tehran pulling the strings.

While Hezbollah's political weight swells, it doesn't appear to be in any rush to engage Israel in a repeat of their 2006 war.

But if Iran's confrontation with the United States and Israel over its nuclear project reaches ignition point, conflict is inevitable and this time, because Hezbollah is in the government, Israeli leaders have threatened to flatten all of Lebanon, not just Hezbollah's bastions.

earlier related report
Israel facing increased isolation as peace process fades
Jerusalem (AFP) April 13, 2010 - The noted absence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the nuclear summit in Washingon underscored Israel's growing isolation as it lurches from one diplomatic crisis to another.

In the year since the hawkish leader took power, Israel's international ties have been plagued by tensions with Arab neighbours, spats with Europeans nations and, critically, a sharp deterioration of relations with key ally the United States.

At the heart of the friction is the failure of efforts to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.

Many, including King Abdullah of Jordan -- one of only two Arab nations with ties to Israel -- have blamed Netanyahu who completed the first year of his second term in office last month.

"I met Benjamin Netanyahu this time last year. I was extremely optimistic by the vision he had for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Israelis and the Arabs," the king told the Wall Street Journal last week

"However, I have to say that over the past 12 months everything I've seen on the ground has made me extremely sceptical," he said.

Analysts note that Israel's high-profile disputes with Turkey and the United States are rooted in events that occurred before Netanyahu took office -- Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and the election of Barack Obama.

In December 2008, Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert launched a devastating 22-day attack on the Palestinian territory in a bid to halt persistent rocket fire into Israeli towns.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the fighting. A damning UN probe accused Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers of war crimes.

The war prompted the Palestinians to break off peace talks and Turkey -- Israel's only Muslim ally -- has lambasted Israel.

"Turkey used to be an important regional partner, strategically and diplomatically," said Gerald Steinberg of the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies.

"The Gaza war was the excuse it was looking for. Since it realised it can't be a part of Europe, it has had to throw in its lot with the Arab world and move closer to Syria and Iran," he said.

Obama has been more willing to demand greater concessions from Israel than his predecessor George W. Bush.

Netanyahu returned from talks with Obama last month to a wave of derision in the Israeli press, with a showdown over Jewish settlement construction in annexed Arab east Jerusalem unresolved.

When Netanyahu abruptly pulled out of the Washington nuclear summit -- officially because he did not want Muslim nations to make Israel's undeclared arsenal the focus -- many believed that it was actually because he was anxious to avoid Obama.

Netanyahu has not yet answered US demands aimed at paving the way for fresh peace talks with the Palestinians.

Speaking at an event last week to mark a year in office, Netanyahu denied he was to blame for Israel's diplomatic woes.

"There are those who want to put the responsibility on Israel but anyone who looks at matters fully will see this is not the case, and it is not connected to specific steps of this government," he said.

Instead, he said, Israel's international standing was under threat from "the progress of extreme Islam in our region" and the world's failure to confront it.

Still, analysts say Netanyahu and his outspoken foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have exacerbated events with heavy-handed and aggressive diplomacy.

"An argument could be made that the difference between Netanyahu and his predecessors is not how they behave but how he, and some of his officials, speak," said Mark Heller of Tel Aviv University.

"They either don't know how, or don't want to sugarcoat things, put on some kind of diplomatic gloss," he said.

Under Lieberman's no-nonsense diplomacy, Israel has picked fights with several nations, notably Sweden and Turkey, over their failure to halt perceived anti-Semitic slurs in the media.

Arrest warrants for alleged agents of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency over the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai have also earned rebukes from Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Ireland, whose faked passports were used in the hit.

Britain expelled a senior Israeli diplomat -- reportedly the Mossad station chief in London -- even though Israel has not acknowledged any involvement.

A resumption of serious talks with the Palestinians would go a long way towards improving Israel's international standing, analysts said.

"If you are speaking about the West, it is true that as long as it appeared there was some kind of viable (peace) process, they were willing to cut Israel some slack," said Heller.

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