To some, the Middle East may not seem all that hopeless. Indeed, the region may well be on its way to some pragmatic nucleus of order within the mayhem of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict, Syria, and Iran.

In the Iraqi bloodbath, the Shiites, a 60% majority, are prevailing. As they do, they are coming up against the limits of power.

The leading Shiite religious figures are talking to Iraq’s hapless Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, about how to put an end to the disintegration of the country. The bottom line is that there is little point in inheriting an empty shell of a country with a burnt-out economy, mass emigration of its best and brightest, and dominating neighbors.

Mr. Maliki’s talks this past week with the most revered Shiite sage in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and also with the rebel Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, are developments of paramount significance. Basically, Mr. Maliki is saying, “Your eminence, the Iraqis and Americans broke it, and now we Shiites own it. Can you please fix it?”

Farther west, it seems that the Israelis, Palestinian Arabs, and Lebanese are also close to hitting the ceiling of what is possible.

Having had its party, Hezbollah is now licking its wounds. It did take quite a beating during its month-long war with Israel this summer, despite a notable resistance. And with civil war looming again in Lebanon, the organization is mindful that the rest of the country will not tolerate any more adventurism.

Israel, for its part, has reached the outer limits of what it can do. It has failed to take or pacify Lebanon, and its generals this summer discovered what they already knew — that with Gaza and the West Bank in permanent turmoil, Israel cannot sustain another occupation. Yet Israel has shown the Lebanese that while it may not be able to occupy their country, it can destroy it. It seems that all the parties got the point.

In this configuration, it would appear that Syria and Iran, the two main actors in the background of that Levantine scene, cannot gain anything further by stirring the pot. Simply put, there are no more wars to be fought in that square, after the Lebanese civil war, the Hezbollah war, and the Iraq war.

To be sure, Syria can continue to engineer assassinations, and Iran will sponsor more terrorist spectaculars here and there, probably in the Arab Persian Gulf countries.

But both Iran and Syria have lost much of their footing in the region. After four decades of Israeli control, the Golan Heights are unlikely return to Syria, as not one Arab country is willing to back a military campaign. Iran, meanwhile, must focus on diplomacy to avoid further sanctions.

The Palestinian Arabs are preparing for one more round, with highly predictable consequences.

According to the Israel Defense Force, Hamas, the militia that rules Gaza, has been smuggling in tons of new weaponry to prepare for a Hezbollah-style war against Israel. Hamas seems oblivious to the fact that its armed gangs are nowhere near as trained or disciplined as Hezbollah, and that the Gaza Strip, which is flat as a pancake, is no place for guerrilla warfare.

Israel will deal with Hamas as it always has — through incursions, invasions, and heavy bombings, until the final chapter of the eternal Palestinian Arab “armed struggle” comes to a close.

Then the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs will have to reach an accommodation dictated by reality: a sliver of land in Gaza, tied somehow to the West Bank, that will be called a Palestinian state.

Across the region, the sectarian wars have aroused a yearning for justice in the myriad of ethnic, religious, and tribal minorities who can see what the Shiites have achieved in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Stirrings are already being felt among the Kurds and Christians in the Middle East, the Berbers in North Africa, the Africans in Arab Sudan, and even the Muslims in Darfur who are being killed by other Sudanese Muslims.

Of course, none of this is as ideal as, say, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.

But as Tariq Aziz, a deputy to Saddam Hussein who now occupies the cell next to his, told me in 1999, it has taken Europe three centuries to progress to mature democracies from feudal societies. “How does the world expect us to do it in a few decades?”

He has a point.