The rollout to the Geneva 2 conference stumbled over the weekend and into yesterday, marked by a series of diplomatic missteps regarding the conference’s composition and violence in Lebanon that underscored the degree to which instability in the region may deepen regardless of the talks’ outcome. A car bomb detonated yesterday inside Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold – which the Associated Press dryly noted was “apparently in retaliation for Hezbollah[‘s] support” of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria – killed four people.

The bombing was the third to target a centre of Hezbollah support this year. The first of those came less than a week after a car bomb killed former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, a critic of Hezbollah and Assad, and six others in Beirut. Officials from the Shi’ite movement often frame the attacks on their centers of support in Lebanon, as well as their involvement in Syria, as part of a broader struggle pitting regional and international powers against one another.

In another sign of the Syrian conflict’s spillover, fighting reignited in the northern city of Tripoli, where at least seven people have died since Saturday in fighting between factions who support different sides in Syria’s civil war.

It was the latest in a string of such bombings by jihadist elements, which hold Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons responsible for providing critical assistance to Syria against largely Sunni opposition groups. Iran’s central role in propping up the Assad regime has also generated diplomatic complications for Geneva 2. The conference is designed to dampen the nearly three-year Syrian conflict, but efforts aimed at assembling parties committed to reducing the violence have been uneven. Rebel groups have opposed including Iran, citing Tehran’s control over Hezbollah and support for Assad. Syria and its backers, including Russia, have taken the opposite position. This weekend UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon first invited Iran to participate – apparently, per his office, in consultation with the U.S. – before withdrawing the invitation. The withdrawal was also done, per extensive reporting, under U.S. pressure.

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