LONDON: A black day in the Middle East produced one hopeful glimmer: Kofi Annan’s insistence, backed by hosts Italy and other Rome conference participants, that lasting peace in Lebanon would require the “constructive engagement” of all regional countries including Syria and Iran. “Looking at the broader picture it is clear we need a new push for comprehensive peace,” the UN secretary-general said. “Without this, we are only buying time until the next explosion.”

Mr Annan’s words sound like a statement of the obvious. And Syria and Iran have repeatedly stated that no Lebanon deal can stick without them. But for its own geo-strategic reasons, the US continues to cold-shoulder the two countries it blames for arming and aiding the Lebanese Shia militia. There have been half-hearted contacts with Syria through the US embassy in Damascus. But with Tehran, a founder member of Mr Bush’s “axis of evil”, nothing at all.

Yet good reasons for seeking direct Iranian and Syrian engagement grow by the day as the US and Israel dig themselves into ever deeper trouble. Yesterday’s Roman circus again underlined international divisions over how to end the fighting and how subsequently to police the Israel-Lebanon border. None of the participants has any appetite for forcibly disarming Hezbullah.

The wider context — Saudi warnings of regional conflagration, a possible Shia uprising against US and British forces in Iraq, escalating mayhem in Gaza, more suicidal terror attacks in western cities, and further global oil shocks — adds up to a strong case for a change of course.

On top of all that, pro-western Arab regimes of varying degrees of illegitimacy wonder how long they can prevent street-level anger at the destruction inflicted on Lebanon taking an insurrectionary turn. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been quietly pushing for an opening to Syria, diplomats say. Recognising the danger, conservative American commentators are urging Mr Bush to make President Bashar al-Assad an offer he cannot refuse: a grand bargain that would accord Syria the regional power status it covets while smashing its alliance with Iran.

In return for cutting its weapons supplies and its political and financial support for Hezbullah, they say, Syria could be offered normalised relations and an end to bilateral sanctions. Other carrots include soft-pedalling on the inquiry into last year’s murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, and renewed discussion on the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in 1967.

“The big strategic chess move is to try to split Syria off from Iran and bring Damascus back into the Sunni Arab fold. That is the game-changer,” said columnist Thomas Friedman. “What would be the Syrian price? It would be worth finding out. After all, Syria hosts Hamas’ leadership. It is the land bridge between Hezbullah and Iran.

Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at Chatham House, said it was possible Mr Bush would turn to Syria as a way out of the crisis but only because all the other choices facing the US and Israelis were even worse. “It would be capitulation, maybe you could call it capitulation light, but capitulation all the same. It would be the end of the American regional agenda,” he said. And Syria would never entirely pull the plug on Hezbullah. Nor would it break with Iran. “The idea that it would do so is naive. The only reason Syria is not under attack now is because of its alliance with Iran.”

Cutting a deal with Damascus to break the deadlock might be more attractive to Washington than accepting a ceasefire that would be portrayed as a victory for Hezbullah, Mr Shehadi said. And it was better than the other choice, which was “direct confrontation with Iran and Syria that could lead to a world war”.

Iran’s price for collaboration would include compromise over its suspect nuclear programme — a likely deal-breaker for the US. And even then, Iran would not abandon Hezbullah. Former President Muhammad Khatami recently hailed the group as a shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims and supporters of freedom in the world. And he is a moderate.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service