BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP)-- It's been barely a week since Syria joined the U.S.-sponsored peace conference, but the participation is already paying off for President Bashar Assad.

The Arab world is treating Damascus more warmly, the sharp criticism from Washington has tapered off and Syria is getting credit inside Iraq for a drop in cross-border infiltration of foreign fighters.
Syria has not achieved its long-term goal: a resumption of negotiations with Israel that it hopes will win the return of the Golan Heights, seized by the Jewish state in the 1967 Mideast war. So far, new talks are not being considered.
But on other fronts it has been smoother going for Damascus since the Nov. 27 gathering in Annapolis, Md.
""The Annapolis conference opened a tight window for Damascus but in return is subjecting her to a series of tests, rather than incentives,"" Sateh Noureddine wrote over the weekend in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, which is seen as close to the pro-Syria opposition.
Syria, meanwhile, stresses that it holds its own interests as a priority.
""We did not go to the conference to satisfy anyone,"" Suleiman Haddad, head of the Syrian parliament's foreign relations committee, said Monday.
""The conference could have some repercussions which we could see in Lebanon today such as the easing of tensions,"" he told The Associated Press, but Syria went to Annapolis for the sake of the Golan and in support of collective international action.
""We went out of faith and conviction that peace is the only choice,"" said Haddad, a former assistant foreign minister.
In any case, the Syrians are reaping the benefits with the breaking of its isolation by Western and Arab nations.
Two days later, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Syrian participation showed ""they understand that there is another pathway that they can choose to take, a more constructive pathway.""
The voices from Syria's neighbor Iraq also are comforting. Damascus is now credited with taking steps to limit the flow of foreign militants into Iraq after years of being accused of allowing them across its border.
The U.S. second-in-command in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, reported a reduction of up to 30 percent in foreign fighters entering Iraq.
""We think they (the Syrians) can do a bit more, but we're pleased with the fact that they are taking some additional responsibility with their own internal security measures,"" he told CNN.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke to Assad two times and has sent his chief of staff twice to the Syrian capital to discuss Lebanon.
On the Arab front, Jordan's King Abdullah II visited Damascus before the Annapolis conference — his first visit to Syria in four years.
Efforts are under way for a summit that brings Syria together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, said Ibrahim Hamidy, who reports for the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat and LBC satellite television.
In Al-Hayat on Monday, the Damascus-based Hamidy said a Syrian envoy was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia, another country with which Damascus has had bad relations the last year.
Hamidy called isolating Syria a mistake, but said Damascus recognized it cannot do without Arab solidarity, particularly since it is hosting the Arab League summit in March. He said Syria also concluded it should not ""provoke"" the Bush administration in its last year in office.