Rice Diplomacy

But the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, seemed unimpressed, offering a blistering critique of the American role in Iraq.

8216;8216;The unilateral policy, the arrogant one-sided policy, is a principal reason for the complex situation we are seeing in Iraq,8217;8217; Mottaki said of Washington8217;s stance in remarks made at a news conference at the end of the two-day meeting.

Mottaki8217;s remarks disappointed many diplomats here8212;including Iraqi officials8212;who had tried to orchestrate a brief meeting between him and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a step toward thawing tensions between the two countries.

The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, tried to put the best face on the disappointment with a touch of humour. 8216;8216;They were in the same room, at the same table,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;It wasn8217;t a very big table.8217;8217;

The meeting, attended by representatives of about 60 countries, produced a series of promises, from Iraqi officials and leaders of neighbouring countries, intended to bring peace. There was a promise of debt relief from the international community and a promise by Iraqis to do more to bring about national reconciliation.

But perhaps the most significant development, many people here said, was the more humble face of American diplomacy. The change suggests that the Bush administration now agrees with what Arab leaders have been saying for years: that Washington cannot succeed in the Middle East with unilateral action.

Officials of countries that were once on the Bush administration8217;s do-not-call list are now getting face time with top American envoys. On Thursday, Rice met for 30 minutes with the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem. It was the first high-level meeting between the two countries since President Bush recalled his ambassador from Damascus in February 2005 after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

The decision to unfreeze relations came after State Department officials concluded that directly asking Syria to crack down on the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq was worth facing criticism from conservative hawks in Washington who argue that America should not talk to its foes.

But despite the opening, the issue of Lebanon remains a huge obstacle to American-Syrian ties. The Bush administration still plans to seek a UN Security Council resolution authorising an international tribunal to prosecute suspects in the Hariri assassination, an inquest that is adamantly opposed in Damascus.

Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former senior adviser on Arab-Israeli relations at the State Department, said neither the US nor Syria was willing to deliver what the other wanted. Syria, he said, wants the Hariri tribunal to go away, while the US wants Syria to help with Iraq and to rein in the militant Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

Even so, he said, the Bush administration, running out of options in the Middle East, 8216;8216;may be looking for another lever to pull in Iraq, Lebanon and the peace process.8217;8217;

On Iran, attempts at high-level talk did not succeed. 8216;8216;Well, first of all the opportunity simply didn8217;t arise for the foreign minister of Iran and me to meet,8217;8217; Rice said in response to a question. 8216;8216;As I said, I would have taken that opportunity,8217;8217; she added, 8216;8216;but the opportunity didn8217;t arise.8217;8217;

The opportunity was almost there8212;and it was derailed. Rice planned to seek out Mottaki at dinner on Thursday, but he arrived before she did, took one look at a female Russian violinist clad in a red dress8212;too risqueacute; for strict Muslim sensibilities, diplomats said 8212;and left as Rice arrived.

State Department officials said they hoped to engage Iran about the American belief that it had been arming Shiite militias in Iraq with 8216;8216;explosively formed projectiles,8217;8217; which have been used against American troops and Iraqi civilians.

The Americans did say they managed to have a hallway chat with some Iranian officials, an effort at contact that just a short time ago would have seemed unthinkable.

Rice said the change did not reflect a broad new policy but was restricted to Iraq and to the conference. Others saw something else: a humbler White House eager to enlist as much help as possible to extract itself from Iraq.