BEIRUT: After years of escalating tensions and bloodshed, the talk in the Middle East is suddenly about talking. The shift is still relatively subtle, but hints of a new approach in the waning months of President George W. Bush's administration are fueling hopes of at least short-term stability for the first time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Much is happening, adding up not to any great diplomatic breakthrough, but a distinct change in direction. Syria is being welcomed out of isolation by Europe and is holding indirect talks with Israel. Lebanon has formed a new government. Israel has cut deals with Hamas (a cease-fire) and Hezbollah (a prisoner exchange). On Wednesday, the United States agreed to send a high-ranking diplomat to attend talks with Iran over its nuclear program and was considering establishing a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time since the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis.
"The overall picture is moving in the direction of cooling the political atmosphere," said Muhammad al-Rumaihi, a former government adviser in Kuwait and editor of Awan, an independent daily newspaper there.
Many underlying problems, including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, are not on the verge of resolution. Afghanistan has recently seen a sharp spike in violence. In the Middle East, optimism can fill the void left by even a temporary lull in violence, like the recent - and still fragile - stability gains in Iraq. Nevertheless, not long ago, the fear was that Lebanon would descend into civil war and that either Israel or the United States, or both, would attack Iran. That seems less likely at the moment.
The United States, Israel and some of their European allies have begun to recognize that their policy of trying to defeat their enemies by isolating and vilifying them has failed.
The West's opponents - Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas - also appear to recognize that the cost of ratcheting up tensions may be too high. Syria and Iran are suffering serious economic problems and could benefit from better relations with the United States and Europe. "We are seeing the outlines of a general thaw in the region," said Osama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut.
This is not necessarily good news for Washington's traditional Arab allies, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Leaders there were content to have the United States keep pressure on Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, which threaten their own power.
But it represents a pragmatic recognition among Western nations, analysts said, that those deemed rogues in the West have often generated popular support in the region. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have repeatedly shown nimble political instincts that have allowed them to exploit democratic openings urged by Washington to enhance their influence.
There is also recognition that the players who can deliver in hot spots like Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza are the same ones that Washington had shunned - Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
"You may have to deal with governments on political issues, but when it comes to security, they have to deal with nonstate actors like Hezbollah and Hamas," Safa said.
Simon Karam, a former Lebanese ambassador to Washington, said Hezbollah and Hamas also seemed to have followed the path taken by Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization, which was also condemned as a terrorist group before it found its place at the negotiating table.
"I witnessed a similar process with regard to PLO, Fatah and Arafat," Karam said. "Both Americans and Israelis are more inclined to accept the status quo."
Not long ago, for example, when Fatah leaders negotiated a cease-fire with Israel, it was Hamas that had to be pressed to abide by the truce. Now Hamas, having negotiated a cease-fire with Israel in Gaza, has tried to rein in groups like Islamic Jihad.
The United States and Israel may have failed to dislodge Hamas from Gaza, weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon, stop Iran's nuclear program or force any pronounced change of behavior in Syria. Yet, each of those players has now seen it is in its interests to deal, too. The process of talks confers on them new diplomatic and political status, but maintaining that status requires some moderation in their policies.
The emerging phase in Middle Eastern dynamics was on display Wednesday. Emotions ran high when Israel and Hezbollah completed the deal to trade five Lebanese prisoners for two coffins with the remains of the Israeli soldiers captured two years ago. It was a clear Hezbollah victory, yet it was also seen in Lebanon as a deal to reduce the chances of a fresh cross-border conflict, analysts said.
On the same day, the United States announced that it would send William Burns, the under secretary for political affairs at the State Department, to attend talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
The White House said there would be no negotiating. But that did little to mask the new approach and was undermined by the talk of establishing limited diplomatic ties with Tehran.
"The presence of the representative is a move towards calm between Iran and the United States, especially within the Iraqi context," said Rumaihi of Kuwait.
Events in this part of the world can change quickly. Lebanon could erupt next spring, when parliamentary elections are scheduled. If diplomatic overtures to Iran fail to dissuade it from pursuing what the West fears is a nuclear weapons program, military options could again take center stage.
Some analysts suspect that Israel and the United States may be trying to placate their other enemies in advance of a military strike on Iran that they consider all but inevitable. But these days, for everyone who sees diplomacy as a cover for military action, someone else sees saber rattling as a cover for compromise.
"The Arab side is unable to grasp the speed with which the change is happening," said Salama Ahmed Salama, a daily columnist in Al Ahram, Egypt's largest state-controlled newspaper. "Newspapers in Egypt and Saudi are all talking about the coming war between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other. They can't understand that a compromise can happen at any time."
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo.
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