Would all of this have been more or less likely without Nancy Pelosi's "treasonous" meeting in Damascus?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a session of talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem on Thursday.

They met in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where they are attending an international conference on stabilizing Iraq.

The meeting comes as a the U.S. military said Syria is doing more to stop the flow of foreign fighters coming across its border into Iraq.

U.S. military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said insurgents were still crossing the border into Iraq's vast western desert, where Sunni Islamist Al-Qaida in Iraq has influence, but numbers were slowing.

"There has been some movement by the Syrians ... there has been a reduction in the foreign fighter flow making their way into Iraq, as we have observed here over the last month," Caldwell told a news conference.