WASHINGTON — A panel mandated by Congress to develop new Iraq policy is leaning toward recommending either a phased withdrawal of soldiers or a new engagement initiative with Iran and Syria to end the violence in Iraq.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, chaired by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and a former House International Relations Committee chairman, Lee Hamilton, met Monday to hear a series of options from its expert working groups.

According to participants in that meeting, the two chairmen received a blunt assessment this week of viable options for America in Iraq that boiled down to two choices.

One plan would have America begin its exit from Iraq through a phased withdrawal similar to that proposed this spring by Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat of Pennsylvania and former Marine. Another would have America make a last push to internationalize the military occupation of Iraq and open a high-level dialogue with Syria and Iran to persuade them to end their state-sanctioned policy of aiding terrorists who are sabotaging the elected government in Baghdad.

At a press conference yesterday, Messrs. Baker and Hamilton stressed that they have arrived at no conclusions on policy recommendations. Both chairman also said no public report will emerge until they brief Congress and the White House, and until well after the November midterm elections.

In the next two weeks, Mr. Baker said, the 10-member panel will meet with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Muallim, and a high-ranking Iranian official.

Mr. Baker said he will not pass official messages in those meetings.

The Pentagon announced yesterday that it will maintain 140,000 troops in Iraq until at least the spring and may even call up more reserves to bolster that number. Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney have derided Democrats for their “cut and run” strategy when Democratic lawmakers have proposed time lines for withdrawals from Iraq.

And though America still has an embassy in Damascus and offered to engage Iran in discussions about Iraq earlier this year, President Bush has resisted more far-reaching diplomacy with the two regimes.

Indeed, yesterday Mr. Bush made a point in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly to address the people of Syria and Iran directly, and not their leaders.

Nonetheless, the options proposed at the Monday meeting could become the war policy. The Iraq Study Group is likely to be as influential as the 9/11 commission, which Mr. Hamilton cochaired with a former governor of New Jersey, Thomas Keane. While the Iraq panel is not charged with assigning blame on past policy failures, as the 9/11 commission was, it does have the ability to give new legitimacy to a withdrawal strategy and force the administration’s hand on policy.

Among the 10 members of the panel are White House allies like an attorney general during the Reagan administration, Edwin Meese, and a retired Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor.

But the biggest ally is Mr. Baker, who is already a key adviser to the White House. The prospect of a phased withdrawal or belated internationalization of the occupation is gaining ground, as well, in light of the deteriorating situation in Baghdad.

The city has become ungovernable in the last two months, and Iraqis in the capital face a barrage of daily terror attacks, murders, and kidnappings.

Mr. Baker said that when the study group visited Baghdad, no one except a former Democratic senator from Virginia, Charles Robb, left the safety of the heavily fortified American Green Zone, in the center of the city.

While the two chairmen rebuffed requests yesterday for a more detailed assessment of the situation in Iraq, they both said the next three months will be important.

Mr. Hamilton said the situation in Iraq is urgent. “The government of Iraq must show its own citizens soon, and the citizens of the United States, that it is deserving of continued support,” he said. “The next three months are critical. Before the end of this year, this government needs to show progress in securing Baghdad, pursuing national reconciliation, and delivering basic services.”

Mr. Baker said the study group will make every effort to achieve a consensus set of recommendations.

But a story in yesterday’s Houston Chronicle suggested that the former secretary of state has been a longtime critic of the Iraq war.

The paper printed an excerpt from his new memoir, “Work Hard, Study … and Keep Out of Politics!” in which Mr. Baker wrote, “The Defense Department made a number of costly mistakes, including disbanding the Iraqi army … failing to secure weapons depots, and perhaps never having enough troops to successfully pacify the country. One thing is for sure: The difficulty of winning the peace was severely underestimated.”