Middle East expert Mona Yacoubian says diplomatic moves in the Middle East indicate that various parties are becoming "increasingly alarmed" about regional volatility.

Counterterrorism expert Daniel L. Byman says Hezbollah is "the most powerful single political movement in Lebanon" and remains a potent guerrilla force.

Joshua Landis, a leading Syria specialist, says a prospective Syrian-Israeli peace agreement is "very feasible," though perhaps not quickly.

Mohamad Bazzi, former Middle East correspondent for Newsday, says evidence suggests Israel’s intelligence agents as the most likely source of the bomb that killed Hezbollah terrorist chief Imad Mugniyah, but other scenarios also are feasible.

Joshua Landis, a leading Syria expert, says Syria’s surprise attendance at last week’s Annapolis peace conference came after heavy lobbying.

Gary Samore, an arms control official in the Clinton National Security Council and CFR’s director of studies, says it remains a mystery whether Syria was working with North Korea to receive nuclear technology. He adds, however, that it would make sense that Syria would be interested to develop some kind of deterrent, given that its neighbor, Israel, is said to have nuclear weapons.

Mona Yacoubian, a former intelligence analyst for the State Department, says the special UN tribunal to investigate the assassination in 2005 of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is linked to the politics of Lebanon and Syria, with the Syrians trying to sow enough chaos to prevent the tribunal from ever getting underway.

Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria, says the recent U.S.-Syria meeting produced little because of the ongoing U.S.-backed probe into the killing of Lebanon’s former prime minister.

CFR’s Steven A. Cook says the decision to speak with Iran and Syria on Iraq, marks “a positive change in policy.”

Geoffrey Aronson, who participated in two years of intermittent talks between unofficial Israeli and Syrian representatives, said contacts continue even though they have not sat down together since last summer. Aronson says talks led to a “non-paper” and unofficial accord by which Israel would return the Golan Heights to Syria and in return get access to water in the region.

Richard N. Haass, CFR president and a well-known Middle East expert, says what President Bush’s Iraq speech “represented more than anything else was the re-Americanization of the effort.”

Michael Young, an expect commentator on Lebanese affairs, says he has little doubt the recent assassination of Christian leader Pierre Gemayel and other killings in Lebanon were carried out by Syria and its Lebanese allies.

Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria and Lebanon, says the drawn-out Iraq conflict has fed an image of declining U.S. influence in Lebanon, which has led Hezbollah to try to weaken, if not overthrow, the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Syria’s U.S. ambassador says Damascus can play a "constructive role" in resolving the current fighting in Lebanon but is getting the diplomatic cold shoulder from the Bush administration.

Scott Lasensky, who specializes in Syria and other Middle Eastern areas for the U.S. Institute of Peace, says Syria has mounted a major crackdown to try to silence the growing number of intellectuals and activists calling for change.

Karim Makdisi of the American University of Beirut says Lebanon's leaders are a closed elite trying to hold onto power for themselves and are powerless to reform the country's political situation.

Joshua M. Landis, a Syria expert who recently returned to the United States from Damascus, says that Syrian leaders are seeking to establish good relations with Iraq. He says the new prime minister of Iraq, Jawad al-Maliki, lived in exile in Syria for twenty-one years, but the current Syrian leadership, which had little direct contact with him, is trying hard to curry favor now.

U.S. Institute of Peace expert Mona Yacoubian tells Bernard Gwertzman the international pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime seem to be easing—at least from Damascus' perspective.