WASHINGTON – America will accept a political role for Hezbollah in the Lebanese government, after Syrian forces exit, American officials said yesterday.

But plans remain to disarm the organization once dubbed by Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, as the “A-team of terrorism,” according to senior administration officials.

“Our position on Hezbollah has not changed. It is a terrorist organization,” State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside told The New York Sun yesterday. “Any party that can win public support democratically should play a role in Lebanon’s future, as determined by the Lebanese people. What we cannot and will not accept is that the role Hezbollah plays can be determined by its military strength or by the use of terrorism.”

Despite many comments from other senior administration officials, Ms. Reside’s remarks were the closest anyone working for the president came yesterday to demanding on the record that Hezbollah abandon its arms and cease to practice terrorism under the terms of U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for the dismantling of all militias.

The change in rhetoric on Hezbollah in some ways reflects the fact that the group summoned at least 100,000 demonstrators to Beirut this week calling for Syrian troops to remain in the country, countering demonstrations the week before calling for them to leave.

Secretary of State Rice, for example, could not bring herself yesterday to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization when asked directly by reporters en route to Mexico. “The American view of Hezbollah has not changed. What we are focused on at this point is removing what is an artificial factor in Lebanese politics, and that is Syrian forces and Syrian security personnel,” she said.

Another State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, yesterday said, “It’s not for us to say who’s part of the political process or who’s not part of the political process.”

The carefully crafted remarks in some ways reflect the situation on the ground in Lebanon. Hezbollah already holds seats in the country’s Parliament and to this day can raise money as a political party in Europe, although the European Parliament yesterday took steps that could lead to the banning of that practice. Hezbollah’s estimated 20,000-member militia acts as a police force in southern Lebanon. Both America and Israel say the group has in the last two years stepped up recruitment for terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

Nonetheless, the public recognition that Hezbollah could become a political party by State Department officials reflects a change in emphasis, if not policy. In December, the State Department banned the organization’s satellite station, al-Manar, from broadcasting in America, labeling it a foreign terrorist organization. The Bush administration has also prosecuted fronts that raised money for the group, a step President Clinton’s Justice Department never took.

The vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, told the Sun yesterday that he was troubled by what he perceived as a walk-back on Hezbollah from senior administration officials in light of the news that European Union officials took the first step yesterday to finally declaring Hezbollah a terror organization in their own countries.

“While I believe there has been no change in policy, the way it was presented is subject to misinterpretation,” he said. “In her statements today, Secretary Rice reiterated there was no change in policy, but did not respond specifically when asked to identify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, although that remains the position.”

Some lawmakers were blunter. “Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and their actions prove that,” a spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas, said yesterday. “They need to be dismantled and the fact is, if a terrorist goes on vacation, he or she is still a terrorist.”

The ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California, said he understood why the administration would focus for now primarily on the removal of Syrian troops and security forces from Lebanon. But he added, “We must remember that, ultimately, no Lebanese state will be truly sovereign or even viable until Hezbollah is disarmed. And Congress certainly would not stand for any softening of the U.S. view of Hezbollah as a terrorist group or any change in our policy regarding how to deal with Hezbollah or its members.”

A spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Josh Block, told the Sun yesterday, “Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that has murdered hundreds of Americans, Europeans, Israelis, and other innocent people. They must be dismantled.”

In an interview with the Sun yesterday, Lebanese-American congressman, Ray Lahood, a Republican from Illinois, said he wanted the administration to continue to publicly badger Hezbollah, but added that it was not the job of America to dismantle them. “We are not going to send troops in and send Hezbollah out,” he said. “I think in the end the Lebanese people will take the opportunity to run them out of the country. The Lebanese people should make sure every member of Hezbollah has an opponent and they run them in elections for the Parliament.”

Mr. Lahood, who serves on the House committee that approves the budget for foreign aid, did say that he favored increased funding for American training of the Lebanese national army. The president requested that money in a supplemental budget proposal for 2005.

An expert on Hezbollah who tracked their foreign financing as an FBI analyst, Matthew Levitt, told the Sun yesterday that he believed that the Europeans were coming around to the American position on the terrorist group. “There has been no policy shift in the United States,” he said. “The only recognizable shift has been in Europe. The E.U. Parliament branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization today. There is unanimity regarding Hezbollah’s terrorist and guerrilla activities now.”

Mr. Levitt, who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pointed to the European Parliament’s decision yesterday as evidence of the change from European governments. Next week the European Union is scheduled to take up the matter and may opt to make it illegal to raise money for the group in its member countries.

“No one has a problem with Hezbollah’s participation within the process per se, it is the organization’s simultaneous violent activity and incitement to violence through vehicles like al-Manar with which we take issue,” Mr. Levitt said.