Americans are hearing much less from the Bush administration about democracy for the Middle East than they did a year ago. As Shiite Iran rises, the White House has muted its calls for reform in the region as it redirects policy to reembrace Sunni Arab allies – who run, to varying degrees, authoritarian regimes.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 shifted the balance of power in the Middle East, delivering a Shiite-led government to a country that had for decades been dominated by its minority Sunnis. That, in turn, opened the door to Iranian expansion.

To contain Tehran, Washington is now reaching out to Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Egypt, and Jordan, in the form of large arms deals and new talks on such issues as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in the eyes of most Arabs and many others remains the greatest source of tension – and extremist support – in the region.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels again to the region next week, underscoring the administration's drive for progress on Middle East peace.

Also, a significant US shift toward Iraq is under way. American policy is moving from bolstering the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a way to force action on political issues to a "bottom-up" approach. This has led to the funding and arming of Sunni tribes and communities in Anbar Province that until recently targeted US forces.

"If you look at it in the context of this Sunni-Shia sectarian divide and the fault line that divides the region, we are in effect adjusting our position," says Martin Indyk, a former US diplomat now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, referring to the broader implications of the new American path in Iraq.

Having paved the way for Iraq's Shiites to take power, he says, "We find ourselves in a situation where that plays to Iran's advantage and to the disadvantage of our erstwhile Sunni Arab allies in the Arab world."

The result of this belated realization, Mr. Indyk says, is that "we are adjusting ourselves to the point where we line up with the Sunnis against the Shias in this broader sectarian divide."

Some experts in the region suggest the reaffirming of ties to America's traditional Arab allies is not so much a sectarian question as more simply a reemphasis on longtime US security interests in the region.

The Bush administration has concluded that those interests – energy security, counterterrorism, and stability – are best served by working with the Arab regimes that happen to be Sunni, they say, but not because of some Sunni-over-Shiite shift.

"It's more Arab-Persian than it is Sunni-Shia," says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, highlighting the effort to contain Persian Iran that underpins interests. "It's not sectarian," he adds, "it's realpolitik."

Others agree that the US adjustment has more to do with a retreat from grand goals in the face of Iran's rise, than with changing sides in a sectarian divide.

"We have Condoleezza Rice backing off from supporting democratic reform in the region, and the more messianic goals of the first Bush administration have been abandoned, but that's because they don't work," says Michael Hudson, a specialist in international relations at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

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