We are not surprised, and we expect very few will be, at the White House's negative reaction to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria, which the Bush administration has branded as an evil power that sponsors terrorism.

We believe that the administration is wrong and should reassess its attitude to the visit and its approach to relations with Syria and its other Middle East nemesis, Iran. Short of such a rethink, as well as a broader overhaul of its Middle East policy, the Americans will find themselves more deeply mired in that quagmire of a war in Iraq.

Indeed, it has been more than two years, since President Bush withdrew his ambassador from Damascus, that the United States has had serious contacts with the Syrians. The proximate cause of the diplomatic action was Damascus' alleged involvement in the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. But even before then, the relationship was tenuous.

The fact is that the Americans and Syria see the world through different lenses. Damascus backs Lebanon's radical Shi'ite political movement, Hezbollah, which gave Israel a bloody nose in last summer's Lebanese war that should have wiped out the group. The Syrians also support Hamas, the radical Palestinian party, which like Hezbollah, also has support at home. Moreover, the Bush administration believes that some foreign insurgents find their way to Iraq via Syria and also receive succour from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Perhaps the administration is right about Syria. But the fact is that Damascus, like Tehran, has emerged as an influential regional power, which the United States ignores at its peril, or rather, at the diminution of its capacity to influence events in the Middle East. As America's engagement of North Korea in the six-party talks proves the point of the efficacy of diplomatic dialogue, President Bush should perhaps also remind himself of the Vietnam-era Paris peace talks.

Indeed, this idea of talking and negotiating with people with whom you do not agree is not outside the mainstream of current U.S. political thought; there is the evidence of the Iraq Study Group, whose recommended engagement of Syria and Iran has been ignored by the White House. The fact, it seems, is that in current U.S. Middle East policy, ideology has ascendancy over pragmatism.

Hopefully, though, by meeting with President Assad, Mrs. Pelosi might begin to shift the balance towards a return to the diplomatic pragmatism that is so critical to Middle East peace. Indeed, former President Carter has argued that solving the problem of that troubled regime demands courage on the part of all players. Mrs. Pelosi has demonstrated that she has that.

At the very least, she is likely to have scored a political point for the Democrats by staking out a position different to the President on an approach to a war that is unpopular at home.