WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The prospect of rare senior-level talks this week between the United States and Iran offers some hope of defusing a confrontation between Tehran and the West, but the odds of success are long and risks abound.The drama is set for the Sharm el-Sheikh resort in Egypt on Thursday and Friday, when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki attend a conference of nations with a stake in Iraq’s future.

President George W. Bush has spent most of his six years in office openly hostile to Iran, a US adversary for nearly three decades. Until recently, Bush insisted there could be no talks at Rice’s level until Iran stopped enriching uranium, used in nuclear weapons.

Now he seems almost eager to engage, telling reporters on Monday Rice will not avoid Mottaki at the conference and acknowledging in an interview with Public Broadcasting’s “Charlie Rose” show that Rice and Mottaki may well have direct talks, focusing on Iraq, not the nuclear issue.

Authorizing Rice to talk substance with Mottaki “is a complete reversal of the Bush policy of the last six years. I just haven’t seen any administration back down with such speed,” said Iran expert Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Despite the expectations, whether Tehran is ready to talk seriously with Washington is unclear. An Iranian government spokesman insisted on Tuesday that Iran would not negotiate until the United States stopped its “evil approach.”

Many experts have long urged Bush to engage US adversaries, arguing that sustained diplomacy with both Iran and North Korea was essential to persuading them to abandon their rapidly expanding nuclear programs.

Pyongyang has acknowledged its weapons programme. The West says Iran’s is also for weapons but Tehran insists it only wants to generate electricity. Bush, eager for a foreign policy success before leaving the White House in January 2009, has shifted on both issues.

Analysts say this reflects a triumph of realism over “neoconservative” ideology, whose advocates encouraged a hard-line approach toward US adversaries but increasingly have lost influence and left the administration.

Bush’s popularity has plummeted as violence engulfs Iraq and a Democratic-led Congress fights him over setting a timetable for withdrawing US troops. Meanwhile, he has accused Iran of aiding Iraqi insurgents and Shi’ite militias and allowing arms to enter Iraq.

Many experts say Tehran could play a big role in stabilising Iraq and this should be a major area of US-Iranian convergence.

“If it was going reasonably well in Iraq, the administration wouldn’t be doing this,” Takeyh said.

Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that because the United States had successfully united major powers, Iran had been isolated and now seemed more amenable to a “managed solution” of disputes with Washington.

“In my judgment, the administration’s Iran policy is one of the unsung successes,” he said.

Iran has defiantly pursued its nuclear program but the major powers — the United States, the European Union, Russia and China — believe sanctions have stoked a debate that could persuade the Islamic republic eventually to halt enrichment, at least temporarily, in return for a sanctions suspension.

They have offered Tehran economic, civil nuclear and security incentives if it suspends enrichment. US conservatives who once supported Bush are increasingly critical, fearing Washington and its allies ultimately will accept a solution in which Iran could continue some enrichment activities on its soil. “There’s always a risk when a senior administration official, looking for a legacy, has a ground-breaking meeting with one of America’s most enduring enemies,” said Danielle Pletka, vice president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

“The Iranians are not offering anything in exchange for a sit-down with Rice ... so anything they get from her — whether a wink or a nod or a sit-down (meeting) — will be seen by them as a concession and rightly so,” she added.

Even proponents of dialogue say that once the Americans hold talks with Iran, it could be tougher to revive a push for new UN sanctions if deemed necessary.