Guess all those birth pangs of democracy in the Middle East have gone and squeezed out a pup: Israel and Hamas are talking. And there is even some muttering about a cease-fire.

And in Lebanon, none other than Condoleeza Rice is giving the thumbs up for a parliamentary pact that allows greater political power to Hezbollah, one of the Administration's biggest bugbears in the region.

Oh... let's not forget Israel is talking with Syria, too, That move apparently goes over the heads of the White House neocons, whose loyalty to Israel is practically killing that country - and this one - with love.

Is peace busting out all over? Uh... well, this is the Mideast, where all the players are experts at public flourishes and private bushwhacking.

Over at The Nation, Robert Dreyfuss has a good, short overview on what this development could mean for the Presidential campaign (you know... the one here):

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/330380

On one hand, this appears to validate Bush's vast democracy-building campaign in the Levant. Except, well, Iraq is still a mess... and Iran lurks over the horizon as the object of our hoary fantasy-projection. And regardless of the fanfare, nothing has been worked out yet between Israel and its chronically despised foes.

The timing is a little odd, too. Right here, in the summer of an election year, a lot of the pressure in the Mideast is... dropping. Hmm... We know the President and GOP will take credit for it, although it seems to have been accomplished despite entreaties from the White House, not because of them.

The news could be good or bad for McCain, depending on how he plays it. That's not a particularly good omen for him, judging from his recent bumbling. He's patterned himself as the ultimate action-figure politico, an instrument of pure, aggressive reaction and incapable of substantive calculation or even movement on his own. It's hard to see this as an advantage: Diminishing the peril of our Perilous Era seeps a lot of gas out of his bag.

Besides, all the people Israel now is engaging were only days ago propped up as our dire enemies, cursed in hushed, revulsive tones usually reserved for Satanists, Nazis and self-loathing paparazzi stalking celebrity beaver.

It the apple cart isn't upset, it's at least rocking on its wheels. Throughout this long "democracy" campaign, the Bush Administration and the Israeli Lobby have sought for their conscripted client the reduction of surrounding Arab nations to vassal status, beholden upon the U.S. – and thereby, Israel – for nothing less than survival itself. From the look of things, heads are a lot cooler in Tel Aviv, and that country's "realists' apparently aren't the pariahs that are this country's. Talk is always cheaper than blood and treasure.

Israel apparently has scoped out the future and decided to go its own way. With a likely Obama presidency on tap for its most-reliable sponsor, Olmert and his cabinet probably feel it's better with fewer rowdies outside the tent, pissing in. Some adjustments are in the offing, and negotiations have always been the surest means of keeping one's friends close and enemies closer.

Wish someone could convice the U.S. Administration of that...

And, too, there's always a possibility the table is being cleared for another Big Show. With some semblance of peace on its borders, Israel and the United States could marshal their forces for an all-out attack on... well... you know.

It's easy to speculate on and difficult to pin down the prime motivation for all this peace-pipe stuff. The choreography seems as offhand and spontaneously improvised as building the Panama Canal.

The immediate benefit of the peace intitatives is, well, peace - however temporary - for the Israelis and their neighbors. For the time being, citizens of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, and settlers on the northern and western border, won't have to worry about bomb vests and improvised rocketry blowing them to bits.

And for others in this “bad neighborhood”, there may be some quiet. As long as tensions are at the boiling point, Palestinians and Arab states in fighter-bomber range must feel they're limbo-stuck in Jericho... and the walls are forever crumbling.

The long-range upshot? Like almost everything else in the Mideast, that can change and remain the same - all at once.