Syria's and Saudi Arabia's combined stand against terrorism in Lebanon is an encouraging sign from two Middle Eastern powers, which for a long time were rivals in the tortuous politics of that chronically unstable country. This hopeful development comes at a time when there has otherwise been little movement toward settlements of conflicts in the region.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, first met in Damascus, where they spoke of concord, and then proceeded together to Beirut on Friday.
The apparent context is the expected announcement of indictments against members of Hezbollah, the terrorist Shiite faction in Lebanon, for the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, in 2005. In the aftermath of that assassination, the prime suspects were members of the Syrian security agency, possibly with some connivance from Mr. al-Assad himself.
Mr. Hariri had been heavily backed by Saudi Arabia in the reconstruction of Lebanon.
The histories of the Syrian and Saudi regimes are very different, making the meeting of these two authoritarian rulers something of a surprise. Mr. al-Assad's second-generation family dictatorship evolved from the rule of the secularist, state-socialist Baathist party, whereas Saudi Arabia is governed by a hereditary dynasty based on harsh religious fundamentalism.
United Nations investigators in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon have reportedly identified the assassins of Mr. Hariri as followers of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, whose dominance of much of southern Lebanon present a continual danger of war with Israel.
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza both amount to terrorist statelets that are clients of Iran - which constitutes part of the wider and worrying regional context. The Syrian government itself is heavily dependent on Iranian funding, but may yet be willing to be weaned off it.
The seemingly imminent charges against Hezbollah members - whether they are "rogue elements" of that religious sect/political party or not - may indeed destabilize the shaky "unity" government that includes Hezbollah - and in which Mr. Hariri's son Saad is the prime minister. Tensions are also rising on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Thus, the probable murder charges will up the ante in and around Lebanon, but the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Syria is a constructive and promising step that may prevent new outbreaks of violence in the Middle East.