DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- America's global war against terrorism is offering Syria a new opportunity to polish its image, tarnished by Washington's classification of this key Mideast nation as a sponsor of terror.

Damascus has expressed a desire to help with the anti-terror coalition, President Bush said last week, and "we'll give them an opportunity to do so."

Experts say it's too early to say how much Syria could expect from supporting the coalition, and they caution it's not the right time for a big bargaining session. Even though Damascus could provide vital information about extremist Muslim groups it has been watching for years, its input cannot be compared to the military access Pakistan is offering the United States.

It's not the first time Syria and the United States have entered an unlikely partnership. Ten years ago, Syria was an international outcast, estranged from its moderate Arab neighbors for its radical policies and from Western countries for supporting what they consider terrorism.

But when the United States was assembling a coalition in 1990 to oust Iraq from Kuwait, then President Hafez Assad chose to sign up for the campaign by sending 19,000 troops to the war. He reaped much needed political and economic rewards that allowed him to begin a process of liberalization.

Syria today has shed most of the closed, socialist image that characterized it when it was a Soviet ally. Syrians are more a part of the global economy, and want Assad's son and successor, Bashar Assad, to stay on the road of modernization and international cooperation.

This time around, though, the fight is not against an Arab country with which Syria was at odds, as in the 1991 Gulf War. It's over an issue over which the United States and Syria have had long-standing differences: terrorism.

Syria feels the United States has unfairly defined as terrorist the actions of Palestinian and other groups that enjoy Damascus' patronage and which Syria considers freedom fighters struggling against Israeli occupation. Almost daily since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, Syria's state-run papers, which reflect the government's views, have stressed Damascus was not deviating from its own definition of terror.

Syria considers the attacks on civilians in the United States acts of terror, but it also believes that Israeli practices against the Palestinians constitute acts of state terrorism.

Syria, like the United States, has an interest in seeing the militant brand of Islam espoused by terror suspect Osama bin Laden crushed. As much as he hates the United States, bin Laden detests secular regimes like the one in Syria.

Syria has had its own confrontation with Islamic militancy. In the 1980s, the government crushed its Sunni Muslim fundamentalist opposition that carried out a spate of car bombings and assassinations starting in the mid-1970s. The government crackdown culminated in a 1982 air and ground attack on the city of Hama, the radicals' stronghold, an action that the West denounced as a human rights violation.

"The Syrians know quite well that if this fundamentalist trend wins, they'll be hurt," said Sarkis Naoum, a political analyst with the Lebanese An-Nahar daily.

But he said Syria's benefits would only be complete if the United States makes concrete moves to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"That would allow all (Arab) governments to be more frank, serious and open in their dealings with the United States," Naoum added.

Whatever the outcome of the anti-terror global effort, the Syrian masses this time will learn about it.

Ten years ago, as U.S. warplanes bombed Iraq, few Syrians knew their nation had contributed troops to a massive war. Syrian papers did not cover the conflict, and the only international paper that was sporadically allowed into the country often had its Mideast page blacked out by the censors.

Today, satellite dishes, Arab, American and European publications and a more dynamic state-run television allow Syrians to follow the events minute-by-minute.

Syria's streets also reflect a more consumer-oriented society. Women in cropped shirts shop at trendy stores and people pack new restaurants, no longer shying away from everything American. But not everything has changed.

At a recent promotional event for Betty Crocker, people crowded around a table covered in cake as Arab pop music blared.

"What's this miracle you're talking about?" gasped Rima Zahra, when someone told her she could whip up a cake in minutes by adding just three ingredients to a mix.

Clutching the ends of her Islamic scarf, Rima's mother sampled the cake.

"Ummm. It tastes like a cookie," Ibtisam Zahra said. "But you know what? This American thing is for the pampered and lazy women of our society, not for the real housewife."