It is so depressing and so familiar. Once again, the Middle East is in flames. Civilians, as usual, are suffering the most.

This round of violence, though, occurs in a different frame. It contains new threats growing out of old alliances among extremists bent on destroying Israel — and out of an impotent U.S. Middle East policy.

If the United States wants to help to make key ally Israel as safe as possible for the long term, President Bush needs to face an unpleasant reality. No doubt it is very unpleasant, but it is also the reality.

Unless Bush wants war with Iran, which the American people clearly don't want and which the U.S. military would be hard-pressed to execute, the United States is going to have to talk with Iran.

The explosions lighting up the sky over Lebanon and northern Israel illuminate a message from Iran's mullahs: This is the kind of mischief we can make if you keep threatening us with regime change and bombs.

With his options limited by the Iraq fiasco, with his hands-off policy toward the Palestinian question in tatters, the president is in no position simply to ignore or bully Iran. He must find a way to engage. That's one message of the last few, scary days.

Israel had little choice but to push back after Hezbollah fighters based in southern Lebanon — the same group that in 1983 killed 241 U.S. Marines stationed in Beirut — staged a cross-border attack into Israel last week in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped.

That raid came about two weeks after Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip tunneled into Israel and kidnapped a soldier.

Iran's and Syria's fingerprints are all over this series of provocations by Hezbollah and Hamas. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shares the two groups' animosity to Israel and the United States.

Hezbollah has received money, arms and training from Iran's mullahs. It wouldn't have executed this provocative raid without consulting Tehran.

Iran, through Hezbollah, is sending the message that American efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program come at a price.

Syria, when it had a puppet government in Lebanon, allowed Hezbollah to have de facto control over the south. Syria is mostly out of Lebanon, but it has left a strong Hezbollah and a weak, elected Lebanese government that cannot disarm the southern militants.

Israel deserves security. But Israel cannot bomb Hezbollah and Hamas out of existence. It has tried and failed before to do that to enemies.

New Israeli President Ehud Olmert needs a good friend such as the United States to help to prevent hostilities from escalating past the point of no return.

So where is President Bush? His administration has abdicated the historical U.S. role as the essential Middle East mediator. It had not been a futile role, as some in the Bush administration claim to be. Because of U.S. leadership, Israel is at peace with Egypt and Jordan.

The president needs a new approach to get out of the unproductive corner into which the Iraq war and other mistakes have painted the nation.

An important start would be letting Iran know that the United States would be willing to engage in direct talks on a range of topics — if Iran cooperates in cooling the current situation and makes a serious gesture to tone down its nuclear program.

Iran's record of acting in bad faith and fomenting terrorism makes it a nation with which no American president would relish negotiating. But it's hard to see what other option would be more productive. Only by engaging with Iran can you get at the threat posed by Hezbollah and Hamas.

Cooling the immediate crisis will require intense diplomacy from Arab nations, the United Nations and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Israel provided an opening with its announcement that a conditional cease-fire is possible.

Talk of sending the superstar pairing of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the Middle East as envoys may seem far-fetched. But the talk is a measure of how grave the situation has become, and how little confidence the current American team engenders.