Shannon, Ireland ? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday appealed to Syria’s Arab neighbors to pressure Damascus to close its borders to foreign militants seeking to join the Iraqi insurgency.

She also voiced optimism about Iraq’s emerging multiethnic government but predicted difficult negotiations as a constitutional deadline nears.

“Somebody will threaten to walk out and there will be a lot of drama around it because that tends to happen in political processes … but they’ve shown remarkable ability to deliver,” Rice said of the Iraqis as she headed home from a brief visit to that country. “As with any political process … in any country, there will be some 11th hour character to it,” she added.

Returning from a one-day trip to meet Iraq’s new leaders, Rice praised the expanded role given Sunni Arabs and said she was confident the Iraqi government could meet important deadlines.

At the same time, she blamed Syria for complicating the new Iraqi government’s efforts to quell violence. The U.S. military contends Iraq’s remote desert region near Syria is a haven for foreign combatants who cross the frontier along ancient smuggling routes and collect weapons to use in some of Iraq’s deadliest attacks.

“We’re going to go back and look again at what the neighbors can do to get the Syrians to stop support for these foreign terrorists who we believe are gathering on Syrian territory and coming across,” Rice said. “Their unwillingness to deal with the crossings of their border into Iraq is frustrating the will of the Iraqi people” and leading to deaths of innocent Iraqis, she added.

Rice suggested she will try to capitalize on momentum from Syria’s recent withdrawal of troops from Lebanon.

“The Syrians are under a lot of international pressure now because of Lebanon,” Rice said. “And the reason that the Syrians are under pressure is they are really out of step with the rest of the region.”