the bush administration seems to be blaming syria, but then, they were trying to isolate syria before, so their claims seem a little suspect to me.
besides, what did syria have to gain by killing hariri? while he was critical of the syrian occupation of lebanon when he was in office, he wasn't in office anymore. all that killing him would likely do is make him a martyr to the cause of lebanese nationalism. i just don't get what syria had to gain by this assassination. for a country with a long history of supporting terrorist groups that is trying to shake its friendly-to-terrorist image, a high profile international assassination is just plain stupid. syria had no incentive to kill hariri under these circumstances and plenty of reasons not to. sometimes countries do act against their obvious interests, but without actual evidence of a syrian connection, i remain skeptical.
the best argument for syria's involvement is the fact that it occupies lebanon and thus would have been able to stop any bombing plot if they were opposed to it. that seems to be the bush administration's line of thinking. but does the administration really want to claim that a country is responsible for every bombing and assassination that takes place in territory that it occupies?
juan cole thinks hariri's death may be spill-over from the recent al-qaeda attacks in saudi arabia. that theory at least has the virtue of making some degree of sense. hariri had lots of ties to the saudi royal family (who al-qaeda opposes), spent the lebanese civil war in exile in saudi arabia, and maintained saudi citizenship. cole mentions that a previously unknown group "Aid and Jihad in the Lands of Syria" claimed responsibility for the attack, for whatever that's worth.
he could have also been killed for purely local reasons. hariri was a rich controversial guy in lebanon, after all. lebanon has been pretty peaceful for the past decade or so, but it's still lebanon.
