Bush's Iraq Policy Confronted by Big Questions, Little Time

"...A great deal was at stake in the talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort.

Rice took a small step forward, opening lines of communication with Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has hopelessly tried for years to isolate those two countries.

She met with her Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, to discuss Iraq, the first high-level US-Syrian encounter in more than two years. The new US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and Rice aide David Satterfield had a brief, three-minute hallway encounter with a top Iranian diplomat on Friday. The United States and Iran haven't had diplomatic relations since 1979.

But the outreach appeared tentative, and it came nearly five months after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group urged Bush to use diplomacy with Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq.

Rice's decision to proceed with the two meetings came after heavy lobbying by the Iraqis, who say they're weary of having their country serve as a battleground for outsiders, American and Iranian.

US officials said the two days of meetings went a long way toward easing suspicions among Iraq's neighbors.

The highlight was the launching of an International Compact for Iraq, a five-year plan to step up foreign assistance in return for economic changes and serious attempts at political reconciliation by al-Maliki's government.

But at this late stage, for real progress to be made, almost everything would have to go right in Iraq.

Al-Maliki's government would have to make genuine efforts to reach a political deal that reconciles Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, while curbing sectarian militias.

And the Iraqi parliament would have to pass long-delayed legislation to divide Iraq's oil revenues equitably.

"We have reached a critical juncture," Barham Salih, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, said in a brief interview. "We cannot afford to lose. And we cannot afford to give people false expectations."

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