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But Syria's geostrategic relevance, particularly in the wake of last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah and growing popular sentiment for withdrawing the more than 140,000 US troops bogged down in Iraq, is making it increasingly difficult to reject appeals for a new diplomatic tack.
"In all of the major challenges we have in the Middle East - Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the role of Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran - things are more complicated without Syria's cooperation," Edward Djerejian, who served as US ambassador to Damascus under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush, recently told the National Journal.
That reasoning is being made by Republican "realists" such as Djerejian, who currently heads the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Houston, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar, as well as some of Washington's closest European allies, notably Britain.
A number of prominent Israelis, including even cabinet-level members of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government, who believe that Assad's recent appeals via Germany's Der Spiegel magazine and the British Broadcasting Corp, as well as other media, for a peace agreement with the Jewish state should be tested, have also called for Washington to engage Assad, if for no other reason than to try to pry Damascus loose from its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah.
Asia Times
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