Looking ahead to action in Afghanistan, Iraq and even, some suggested, helping in the latest Middle East peace push, the mood at the Alliance was a long way from the dark pre-war days barely three months ago.

"With new members, new capabilities and deepened partnerships, we are ensuring that the new NATO will remain the bedrock of transatlantic security in the 21st century," said NATO Secretary General George Robertson.

The ministers of the 19-member alliance, which is due to expand to 26 countries next year, were meeting in Madrid for the first time since the Iraq conflict which almost tore them apart.

Symbolically joining them for the first time were their counterparts from the seven former Communist members-in-waiting, who were invited to join the bloc at a landmark summit in Prague last November.

The six months since that meeting in the Czech capital, where NATO pledged to transform itself definitively from the a Cold War bloc into a post September 11 fighting force, have been a roller-coaster ride.

"Prague stamped change onto the Alliance. Since then, our determination to achieve results together has never flinched, even when the hottest of tensions over Iraq were running highest," said Robertson.

Those "hottest tensions" came in the cold days of February, when the 54-year-old Alliance almost imploded when three countries opposed to the war on Iraq -- France, Germany and Belgium -- blocked an agreement to boost neighbouring Turkey's defences.

After a week of marathon talks ambassadors finally scraped their way out of the impasse only after sidelining France by taking a vote in a committee where Paris does not have a seat -- hardly a solution to foster easy relations.

But those chilly days seemed a distant memory in sunny Madrid this week.

Again symbolically, the ministers met just a day after NATO had given the green light for its military planners to support Poland in creating a "stabilisation" force in one sector of post-war Iraq, a decision described by Robertson as "momentous".

"This is .. a very important decision, very symbolic," said Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, whose country only joined NATO four years ago but was a key US ally during the Iraq crisis.

The Iraq mission will be the second so-called "out of area" operation -- meaning one conducted beyond the traditional European field of activity -- to be taken on by the Alliance, which has struggled to redefine itself since the end of the Cold War.

The first such mission will be the Alliance's takeover of the United Nations-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in August -- a decision taken back in April but for diplomatic reasons never fully acknowledged until the Madrid meeting.

"This is NATO stepping out into the spotlight," said one senior US official, as Robertson welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's reiteration on Wednesday that Moscow would support the Afghan mission.

Amid all the heady optimism, it barely came a surprise when the NATO chief unexpectedly announced that "a number of ministers" had suggested the Alliance could also have a role to play in the Middle East peace process.

"If there was a need for some stabilisation force in that region, then NATO should not rule itself out of that equation," Robertson told reporters.

Perhaps fittingly, the notably absentee from the Madrid meeting -- US Secretary of State Colin Powell -- could not be there precisely because he was with President George W. Bush launching a high-stakes peace initiative in the Middle East.

His stand-in, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, declined to be drawn publicly on hopes for the Middle East push. But he did think it was a good day for NATO.

"I think NATO is actually well on the way to recovery," he said.

WAR.WIRE