using VB:VAR within a conditional?

[Trek]

Everytime I try this I get a parse error when I save the template. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but it's probably something pretty simple/stupid. Here's an example:

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="{vb:stylevar cellpadding}" cellspacing="{vb:stylevar cellspacing}" border="0" width="100%">
<tr>
    <td class="thead" width="100%" <vb:if condition="{vb:raw caneditforms}">colspan="2"</vb:if>>{vb:phrase title}</td>
</tr>

I get the following error when saving the template:

The following error occurred when attempting to evaluate this template:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '{' in /home/XXXXXX/public_html/XXXXXXX/includes/adminfunctions_template.php(4597) : eval()'d code on line 3

I've tried this on several templates so it's obviously doing something wrong, I just don't know what. =)

Thanks for your help!