At Damascus’s Gate

But now, in the post-Annapolis let’s-make-peace-in-the-Middle-East world, the kitchen door may have cracked slightly open to allow Syria back in the house.

Bush administration officials, who usually have not been able to mention the word “Syria” without immediately following it up with “state sponsor of terrorism”, have started to sound conciliatory. Israel says it is willing to consider peace talks with Syria over the Golan Heights. And Arab neighbours went to the mat last week to persuade the United States to do everything it could to get Syria to attend the Annapolis peace conference.

What has changed?

The Sunni Arab states want to woo Syria, with its Sunni Muslim majority, from its alliance with largely Shiite Iran. For the Israelis, one potential benefit would be to play the Palestinians off against the Syrians while trying to negotiate peace with both.

And the United States? “Look, a handful in the Arab League were saying they could not attend the conference unless Syria was put on the agenda,” a senior Bush administration official said. “So we put Syria on the agenda. What did it cost us? Nothing.”

However, American and Israeli officials said the time was not yet ripe for real peace talks with Syria. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel will have enough to do trying to get skeptics to agree to give up settlements in the West Bank and to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians, compromises Israel will have to make if the peace track with the Palestinians has any chance of working.

Trying to get the 12,000 to 15,000 Israeli settlers out of the Golan Heights, in addition, would make an already hard job close to impossible, Israeli officials said, and make it far less likely for Israel to start separate talks with Syria soon. Olmert echoed that with reporters before he flew home Wednesday night. “Conditions are not yet at the point” for talks with Syria, he said. “There’s enough that...