Fearing that he too could be killed, Saad Hariri, the son of slain Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, has been living in self-imposed exile, moving around a number of Arab Gulf states for the last six months.

Saad, who followed his father's footsteps into business, unlike his father, never intended to go into politics. But his father's assassination in a brutal car bombing Feb. 14 that also took the lives of another 19 people, projected the younger Hariri into the forefront of Lebanese politics.

Politics in this part of the world has a strange habit of dragging people into its fray. Hariri is not the first to find his life plans altered as a result of family tragedy.

Ironically, Syria's President Bashar Assad, whose closest advisers are suspected to have had a hand in the slaying of the former Lebanese prime minister, also came into politics despite aspirations of a career in ophthalmology.

It was Bashar's brother, Basil, whom President Hafez Assad had groomed to eventually replace him at the head of Syria's Baath Party and the Syrian presidency. Assad had ruled Syria since taking power in a bloodless coup in 1970. But destiny decided otherwise when Basil was killed in an apparent car accident in Damascus and the then ailing president began tutoring Bashar to take over the business of running the country.

Middle East analysts believe that Bashar initially came to power in 2000 hoping to bring change to Syria's authoritative system of government. Bashar, say some Syrian analysts, hoped to introduce social, economic and political reforms.

Unlike his father, Bashar refused to have the omnipresent photographs of himself plastered all over Damascus. Some saw in this a sign of good things to come. Bashar even allowed limited freedom of expression and political gatherings.

But the honeymoon did not last very long. After a short-lived grace period during which time some leniency was allowed in Syrian political landscape where the Baath Party is the only accepted political entity, the regime began to clamp down once again.

Overnight, posters of Bashar went up all over Syria alongside those of his deceased father.

"Bashar realized that in order to survive he had to become his father," said a Lebanese observer who asked not to be named. "And Bashar became his father."

The young Hariri, similarly, upon the death of his father found himself dragged into Lebanese politics. His political bloc easily won a majority of seats in Lebanon's first parliamentary election after the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country.

Reluctantly, but under great international duress and amid threats of sanctions coming primarily from the United States and France, Damascus pulled out its military and intelligence forces from Lebanon. Syrian troops had entered Lebanon in the wake of the country's civil war in 1976 and had remained there claiming it was to maintain security in Lebanon and to guard its own flank against an eventual attack from Israel, with whom Syria is still technically in a state of war.

But Bashar Assad does not deem the withdrawal of his forces from Lebanon as the end of Syria's involvement in Lebanon. In fact, since the pullout of Syrian forces from Lebanon, Bashar has on a number of occasions, reiterated that in spite of Lebanon's politicians, Syria must remain involved in the affairs of its smaller neighbor.

Which is why several leading Lebanese politicians, among them Saad Hariri, continue to fear for their lives. Hariri said threats on his life forced him to leave Lebanon soon after his electoral victory.

From his temporary lodging in a super-luxurious resort in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where he is staying along with several of his closest advisers, Hariri met with a select number of foreign correspondents and shared some of his thoughts on the continuing investigation into his father's killing.

"I am not against (Syrian President) Bashar (Assad)," said Hariri, "but against the people who killed my father."

Hariri believes his father's killing demonstrated how "desperate and unprofessional" those who ordered the killing were.

Hariri said the way to protect Lebanon is to make sure the people responsible for killing his father are brought to justice.

However, Detlev Mehlis, the U.N. investigator into the Hariri killing, may be facing undue political pressure amid fears pushing his investigation too far may bring down the Syrian regime and introduce greater mayhem in the region.

Until Iraq is sorted out it may be more than any politician could cope with.