WHEN Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, meets European and Arab foreign ministers in Rome on Wednesday, one key minister from the region will be missing.

Syria, the main Arab backer of Hezbollah, has not been invited to the emergency talks, but yesterday it made clear that it has plenty to say — and wants a role in any plan to end the fighting.

“Syria is ready for dialogue with the US based on respect and mutual interests,” Faisal al-Meqdad, an influential Deputy Foreign Minister, said in an interview yesterday.

He offered to “facilitate communication” with Hezbollah, but insisted that Damascus could not speak for the militant group which, he said, made its own decisions.

His offer was swiftly rebuffed by John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, who said it was “hard to see” benefits from a Syria-US dialogue. In his weekend radio address President Bush specifically named Syria and Iran as the two main backers of Hezbollah terrorists who, he said, were responsible for the crisis.

Nevertheless, the Syrian minister’s remarks may be at the centre of the talks in Rome. America wants its Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, to put pressure on Syria to stop Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel and to disarm.

The three Sunni Arab governments certainly want an end to the fighting, which they fear has immeasurably increased Iranian and Shia influence in the region and which is in danger of undermining the standing of pro-Western Arab governments.

The Saudis sent a senior official to Damascus before the Israeli attacks on Lebanon to tell Damascus — and Hezbollah — “not to try to start anything”, according to a senior Arab source. They know that Syria is the only country able to restrain the pro-Iranian militants. So do the Americans.

Syria clearly sees an opportunity in the crisis. It has linked its offer to help with a demand for a settlement that would see Israel releasing prisoners and withdrawing from Shebaa Farms, an area on the Lebanese border that Lebanon claims as its territory.

Damascus, though, has two longer-term aims: an end to Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria in 1967, and a tacit agreement that the US and the West will end their confrontation with President Bashar al-Assad’s government over its alleged involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister.

Damascus cannot seriously expect any promise by the US or UN to draw a line under the Hariri affair, which has come close to destabilising the Assad Government; but it clearly hopes that pressure on Damascus from the West and from fellow Arab governments will be lifted if it can deliver a ceasefire by Hezbollah.

For her part, Dr Rice needs an intermediary with Hezbollah, and will use the talks in Rome to try to create a powerful Arab political front to rein in the militants. The three pro-Western governments have much to lose from the fighting. They, too, would welcome a Syrian effort to defuse the tension. The big question is, can Syria deliver? And can any restraint be forced on Hezbollah without Iran? Washington hopes that its allies in the region — specifically Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt — fear the spread of Islamic militancy more than the threat from Israel.

According to White House officials last night, the broad US strategy in its apprach to the Israel-Hezbollah crisis is to build an “umbrella” of Arab nations against Hezbollah, and by extension the spectre of Shia militancy across the region formented by Iran. In the short term this invloves trying to drive a wedge between Syria, a broadly Sunni nation, and Iran, which is mostly Shia. The two countries have entered into an alliance of convenience against the US in Iraq and against Israel over Lebanon.

President Bush views the current crisis as an opportunity to combat Islamic terrorism in the Middle East by getting Arab allies to unite against Iran.

Fundamentally, the strategy that will be pursued by Dr Rice this week will be part of a broader strategy to transform the Middle East by pitting mod- erate Sunni Arabs against Shia militancy.

Critics say that the strategy is fraught with risks, not least the prospect of intensifying Sunni-Shia hatred across the broader Middle East. Hatred of the US among Sunnis since the US invasion of Iraq is also high, as one result of the war has been the installation of a Shia-dominated Government in Baghdad.

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