A summit that spurred fears on the right of sweeping new Israeli concessions and hopes on the left of an end to the long negotiating impasse now looks more like a diplomatic set piece choreographed to launch arduous negotiations over a revived and revised Mideast road map.

And with less than two weeks to go, there are more questions than answers about the one-day meeting at Annapolis, MD...

This week there were heightened indications that the Bush administration is pushing hard for Syrian participation, although there was no consensus in Jewish leadership circles about what that means.

Over the weekend Rice said on ABC News that “this meeting is about Israel and the Palestinians, but we understand that ultimately there has to be a comprehensive agreement and there has to be progress on the other tracks as well.”

Some pro-peace process activists say dealing with Syria in the Annapolis context makes sense.

“Breaking the current, unproductive position of isolating Syria could produce one of the most significant outcomes of Annapolis,” said Daniel Levy, director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative of the Century Foundation. “If you really want to give this conference a broader buy-in in the region and move beyond the current divisions which make it much more difficult to move the process forward, then a real effort must be made to engage with Syria.” ...

For the complete article, please follow this link. Daniel Levy is also director of the American Strategy Program's Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation.