WASHINGTON, May 13: US President George Bush said on Tuesday that the current fight in Lebanon is part of a greater struggle between the United States and Iran to expand their influence in the Middle East.

“It’s a part of a larger ideological struggle where people are willing to use agents of violence in order to achieve their political objectives,” said Mr Bush when asked if the US and Iran were involved in a proxy war in Lebanon.

In an interview to al-Arabiya television, Mr Bush said that Iranian-backed groups were trying to create “enough violence and confusion” in the Middle East to stall peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian people.

The fight in Iran, he said, was “a clear example of why the Iranian influence needs to be dealt with” and the United States was committed to fighting back this influence through success in Iraq.

“We are standing with our friend, (Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad) Siniora,” said Mr Bush. “We’re analysing ways that we can continue to do so.”

The US president said that he was going to the Middle East later this week to “talk very clearly” about the Palestinian state and how he would like to get it defined before he leaves office in January next year.

“And I think we can. I think we can,” he added.

Mr Bush begins a five-day trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on Wednesday. He warned Iran and Syria that the international community would not allow Lebanon to fall under foreign domination again and vowed to shore up the Lebanese army.

“I strongly condemn Hezbollah’s recent efforts, and those of their foreign sponsors in Tehran and Damascus, to use violence and intimidation to bend the government and people of Lebanon to their will,” Mr Bush said in a statement.

“The international community will not allow the Iranian and Syrian regimes, via their proxies, to return Lebanon to foreign domination and control,” he said.

Mr Bush said Washington would help Mr Siniora by strengthening his armed forces. “It’s probably the most practical way that we can get some help to him quickly,” he told Al Arabiya television, according to a transcript of the interview.

Six days of fighting have left at least 61 people dead and nearly 200 wounded, the worst unrest since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanon’s political standoff, which erupted in November 2006 when six pro-Syrian ministers quit, has left the country without a president since last November when Damascus protégé Emile Lahoud’s term ended.

In a statement issued at the United Nations, a group of Western and Arab nations, dubbed Friends of Lebanon, called for an immediate end to the fighting and the quick election of a president “without prior conditions.”

The Friends of Lebanon groups 12 western and Arab countries — the United States, France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar — as well as the heads of the UN, Arab League and the Council of European Union.