There are increasing signs the administration is wrapping up its Afghanistan strategy review and planning a rollout toward the end of the week beginning November 16, immediately after President Obama and other top officials return from Asia.

Reliable sources tell The Cable that the review has entered its final stages, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Jim Jones now taking the lead and putting on the final touches.

Today, Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke cancelled a planned speaking event scheduled for Wednesday, November 18, at the Women's Foreign Policy Group, "due to unforeseen changes in the speaker's schedule," a group representative said.

And the rest of the President's team is back in town on Thursday, November 19.

The administration sent a team to Brussels this week to consult with all 43 member nations of the International Security Assistance Force, including all 28 NATO nations.

"Their trip will serve to both brief allies on where our efforts stand and to hear their comments and questions about the review," said Michael Hammer, spokesman for the National Security Council.

Meanwhile, certain embassy representatives in Washington have started to receive notice that they will be "consulted" about the Afghan strategy review soon, which some took as a signal that the review was pretty much done and the process of briefing it to stakeholders was beginning.

Hammer said that consultations have been ongoing since the start of the review and cautioned not to read too much into any particular set of meetings. But sources both inside the government and in the larger diplomatic community in Washington are now standing on high alert, preparing for a rollout many feel is imminent.

"We've all been waiting for that call," one Western European diplomat said.

Multiple sources tell The Cable that the Obama administration will avoid Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg's idea of "strategic reassurance" with China during the President's trip to Asia next week, as the U.S.-China policy community struggles to sort out the meaning and impact of the concept.

It seems that every Deputy Secretary of State these days should have a catchphrase to sum up the American view of how China's rise should be managed, or more specifically, how the U.S. wants China to act as its rise becomes more and more pronounced.

In 2005, former Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick announced his idea that China become a "responsible stakeholder," calling for Beijing to become increasingly integrated in international institutions so that they might see it as in their interest act in concert with the international community on a range of issues.

Steinberg, Zoellick's successor, coined his own China paradigm, "strategic reassurance" in a September 24 speech at the Center for a New American Security.

"Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China's ‘arrival'... as a prosperous and successful power, China must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others," Steinberg said, "Bolstering that bargain must be a priority in the U.S.-China relationship. And strategic reassurance must find ways to highlight and reinforce the areas of common interest, while addressing the sources of mistrust directly, whether they be political, military or economic."

Since that day, U.S.-China relationship watchers on both sides of the Pacific have been trying to figure out the impact of Steinberg's speech. Did this signal a softer or tougher line from the Obama administration on pressing China on points of contention? Was "strategic reassurance" meant to replace "responsible stakeholder" as the Obama team's frame on how to think about China?

 "It caused a lot of confusion within the China-watching community," said former Pentagon China official Dan Blumenthal, now with the American Enterprise Institute, "It seemed like different administration officials interpreted it differently. Some took it as a new policy on which we remove Chinese-defined irritants and embrace them as a full partner on their terms. Others were talking very soberly about the Chinese need to reassure us about their military intentions."

Steinberg has been traveling to the region and is considered a highly-respected and integral part of the administration's China team.

But inside the administration, there was a feeling that Steinberg had gotten out ahead of the rest of the team by announcing this idea as if it were policy. Several sources told The Cable that Steinberg hadn't cleared his speech either with the National Security Council or down through the State Department's Asia bureaucracy.

"While the speech text was not cleared, the idea had been previously discussed and is still being worked," a White House official told The Cable.

Michael Hammer, spokesman for the National Security Council, said that Steinberg's concept was discussed at the White House and has subsequently come up in discussions between the Chinese and NSC officials. But "we are not going to preview at this point what the President intends to say during his upcoming visit to China," he said.

"I think it remains to be seen whether other parts of the government are going to embrace his concept of strategic reassurance," said Bonnie Glaser, China fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies "This was an instance of Steinberg organizing his speech and then trying to get buy in after the fact. My sense is that the speech was not very well-coordinated, unlike the 'responsible stakeholder' speech that was given by Bob Zoellick."  

Michael Green, who was senior director for Asia at the National Security Council during the Bush administration, said Zoellick's China mantra was debated and ultimately approved by the White House at the time.

Green and Glaser both predicted that President Obama won't mention "strategic reassurance" during his trip to Beijing next week or in the joint statement to be issued by him and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

"You probably won't hear as much about it from here on out," said Green.

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of today's briefing by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly:

• Kelly defended Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks in Israel, which she tried to back away from (video) in Morocco. "I think that whatever we have said has been completely consistent with our policy.  We haven't changed anything," he said. No real comment on the decision by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas not to run for reelection.
• One reporter in the State Department press corps got very upset that Kelly wouldn't say much on the Abbas resignation. "Okay, just stop.  If you're not going to answer the question, just tell me you're not going to answer the question.  Don't go on with this other stuff," the reporter huffed. Jeez, you'd think that guy would be used to non-answers by now.
• The administration will not push Israel on Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit's request for a guarantee that any Israeli-Palestinian resolution will abide by the pre-1967 borders (surprise, surprise). "This is something for the two sides to work out," Kelly said.
• No comment on reports that there was a three-pronged offer to the North Koreans last week and two of the three conditions were agreed to. "I don't know anything about any kind of stipulation for two talks before we have the [multilateral] talks," Kelly said. Is he not reading The Cable? Ambassadors Stephen Bosworth and Sung Kim did meet with South Korean Six-Party Talk Envoy Wi Sung-lac.
• The State Department is "concerned" about reported Saudi incursions over the Yemeni border. "It's our view there could be no long-term military solution to the conflict between the Yemeni Government and the the Houthi rebels," Kelly said.
• Obama intends to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai's new term wholeheartedly, but Kelly added, "we're going to look for some pretty quick and vigorous steps to try and address some of the problems that he himself has identified, including the need to fight corruption."

The chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, David Abramowitz, is leaving Congress to head up the Washington office of Humanity United, a non-governmental organization based in Silicon Valley.

Abramowitz has been a senior committee staffer since 1999, working for a long time for former chairman Tom Lantos. Previously, he has worked at the State Department and with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He counts among his accomplishments on the committee his work on the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Act of 2000, legislation creating the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the reauthorization of U.S. international HIV/AIDS programs, and the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 .

In his new role, Abramowitz will help lead outreach and advocacy efforts, help direct the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), and provide strategic counsel to grantees, among other things.
 
"My main agenda is to strengthen coalitions and help design interventions that work to prevent genocide, stop mass atrocities and fight modern day slavery," Abramowitz wrote to The Cable in an e-mail, "After twenty years of government service and ten years on Capitol Hill, when this opportunity came knocking, I concluded that it was time to gain a new perspective and work on issues I am passionate about from outside government."

"David has long been a tireless and effective leader on issues such as human trafficking and international justice," Randy Newcomb, Humanity United's CEO, said in a press release.

Abramowitz will take up his new post next Monday.

The administration is pushing back against the latest Congressional effort to thwart their plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and try the prisoners on U.S. soil.

The Senate will start debate today on the Commerce, Justice, and Science spending bill, and there will definitely be a vote on an amendment by Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, that would prevent any money from being spent to try detainees who had a hand in the 9/11 attack in federal civilian courts.

Among the most famous of these is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, who is sitting in Guantanamo now.

Graham's long-held position, with the support of John McCain, R-AZ, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, is that military commissions are preferred. For one thing, if a prisoner is acquitted in a civilian trial, he could be set free, Graham argues. The Senator is a former Air Force lawyer.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter  last week to Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-NV, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, with their opposition to the Graham amendment.

"Our departments are currently involved in a careful case by case evaluation of the cases of Guantanamo detainees... to determine whether they should be prosecuted in a [civilian] court or military commission," the officials wrote, warning it "would set a dangerous precedent, for Congress to restrict the discretion of either department to fund particular prosecutions."

Of course, Congress has been doing just that repeatedly since Obama took office. A whole host of last year's spending bills included language restricting the transfer of detainees, often with Democratic support. A previous amendment offered by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI, garnered 90 votes, showing just how reluctant Senate Democrats are to be seen as weak on the Guantanamo issue.

McConnell has also been skilled in helping to craft such amendments to pass easily and it's in his interest to have the Guantanamo issue debated as much as possible because it plays for the GOP politically. As such, Republicans expect the Graham amendment to pass by a wide margin.

The Democrats' defense for yielding to Republicans on Guantanamo has been that they are awaiting a detailed plan from Obama on how he plans to close the facility. There is widespread acknowledgment that Obama's promise to get it done by January will not be fulfilled.

An administration official, speaking on background basis, told The Cable that "much progress has been made and more details on plans to close the facility are expected in the coming weeks."

The official also touted the reforms to the military commissions process that were signed into law last week as part of the fiscal 2010 defense policy bill.

There are some signs that Democrats are beginning to toughen on Guantanamo.

The Homeland Security Department funding bill that cleared Congress at the end of October had a provision that would allow the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. soil, only for prosecution. Many Congressional Republicans had wanted a complete ban.

Because of that, some on the Hill believe the Graham admendment won't go through.

We don’t expect that members will vote to further tie the hands of the Administration as Graham amdt would do," said one senior Democratic Senate aide, "We do not expect it to pass."

Meanwhile, alleged embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani  has already been transferred to the U.S. to stand trial in a federal civilian court.

Obama himself defended the practice in a May speech at the National Archives.

"When feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts - courts provided for by the United States Constitution," he said, "Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear."

UPDATE: The Senate voted to table the Graham amendment late Thursday by a vote of 54-45. That pushes off consideration indefinitely.

The Obama administration is mounting a high-profile effort to bring senior officials to Singapore for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum beginning next week, but struggling with how much substance they will need to deliver in addition to the pageantry.

During the Bush administration, the countries of East and Southeast Asia sought American attention but often felt the Bush focus on the war on terror crowded their issues off the White House's priority list.

The Obama administration has been working furiously to reverse that impression and the APEC forum will represent the largest display of those efforts yet.

The president, four cabinet-rank officials, dozens of appointee level bureaucrats, and maybe even a few Congressmen will attend the multi-faceted session. But already, administration officials are warning that the event might not produce any actual tangible progress on issues prized by those countries, most importantly on the issue of trade.

"APEC is a non- binding, voluntary organization that operates on consensus," the State Department's Korea desk chief Kurt Tong said Tuesday, "There are real benefits to that, in the ability then to set the agenda within APEC... On the other hand, it doesn't often result in legally binding commitments in and of themselves; but rather, decisions to then take back the outcomes of APEC and implement them on a sustained and voluntary basis."

Tong laid out a number of broad themes for this year's conference: Economic recovery, "resisting protectionism," regional economic integration, as well as balanced and sustainable growth. But his message was clear: the increased U.S. attention and presence at the conference is what the administration wants to focus on and wants credit for.

"That's certainly the perception which we wish to convey," Tong said, "It's really quite a concerted and very enthusiastic embrace of the APEC meetings and APEC as an institution by the United States, as evidenced by that participation," he said.

Top Obama officials who will be attending different part of the conference, in addition to the Obama himself, are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

Although the Bush administration's delegation to last year's APEC Forum in Peru was large, in addition to the president, Condoleezza Rice was the only cabinet official to attend.

But while Southeast Asia experts give the Obama team credit for improving the optics of U.S. involvement in the region, they warn that the countries of the region will be satisfied with that for only so long before wanting to see the new American government put its money where its mouth is.

"The Obama administration gets very high marks on form and being there, which counts for a lot in Asia," said Ernie Bower, the newly minted senior advisor and Southeast Asia program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "But the wheel is about to turn, and eventually you've got to have substance behind this."

The two main things regional actors are waiting for Obama to start moving on are the idea of a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region and commitment to finalize the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.

In both cases, the administration is debating its strategy internally now, but faces problems selling the ideas in Congress and a lack of political capital to spend on trade in the face of an already crowded and ambitious domestic agenda.

"The message to Asia is: We're here, the substance is coming, but please hold on, we have things to do at home first," Bower said.

There is at least a feeling that the conference itself could shake out some movement from the Obama administration on trade. Singapore, the host of the conference, is particularly dependent on trade and therefore is seen as needing some concession from the U.S. on that front.

One area where progress could be demonstrated would be some U.S. commitment to the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP is seen as a "coalition of the willing" on trade cooperation and a lighter, a less restrictive way to advance cooperative trade that could eventually evolve into an FTA.

The other main event in Singapore for U.S. foreign policy watchers will be the side meeting between all ten countries in the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which will for the first time include senior Burmese and American leaders in the same room.

ASEAN has been pushing for an annual meeting with the U.S., as they already have with China, but the U.S. hasn't yet agreed to that. But a big part of the Obama administration's engagement strategy in the region is a recognition that China's charm offensive has made great strides over the last decade.

"The Bush administration was not able to put the needed investment in Southeast Asia, which provided a historic opportunity for China to really step up its game," said Bower, "If the Americans want to play, we're going to have make a significant commitment to ASEAN."

U.S. taxpayer money that was supposed to be used for emergency purposes in Iraq was spent to buy a special advertising issue for an Anbar businessman in a British trade magazine, a U.S. government investigation has found.

FDI magazine, a bimonthly print publication and website owned by the Financial Times, nearly simultaneously showered Anbar Governor Qasim Abid Muhammad Hammadi Al Fahadawi with positive coverage, praising the dangerous Anbar province as "a hot place to invest in" and giving the businessman an award as "Global Personality of the Year for 2009."

FDI's award was announced three days before the "Special Report" on Anbar, entitled, "Bridge to the Future," was published on its website. The award was immediately praised by the U.S. military in Iraq, without mention of the U.S. funds spent on the supplement, and the website makes no mention of it having been paid for by the American government. Then again last month, FDI magazine Editor Courtney Fingar handed the governor another award naming Anbar province one of FDI magazine's "standout regions of the year."

Reached by The Cable, Fingar confirmed the U.S. government had spent "in the neighborhood of $50,000" on the special supplement but denied her magazine's content had been bought and paid for, calling the report on Anbar "balanced and accurate."

The investigation was disclosed in the October quarterly report of the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction (SIGIR), which is tasked with monitoring U.S. expenditures and projects in Iraq, but has so far not been publicly reported. Sources told The Cable that after the report is submitted to Congress, it's up to that body to determine if the payment violated funding rules or the law.

The 14-page special advertising edition, the SIGIR report found, was completely paid for by U.S. military money from what's called the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP).

"CERP was originally designed for urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction," said Deputy Inspector General Ginger Cruz told The Cable. "Over the past six years its use has been greatly expanded and expenditures such as promotional media pieces emphasize the importance of having clear criteria to ensure appropriate use of taxpayer dollars."

"It just seems odd at all parts from whatever angle you look at it," said one administration source who requested anonymity because of the sensitive relationship between SIGIR and the military. Another source called the use of emergency funding to advertize for the governor "bizarre."

Defense Department financial regulations define CERP funding as "designed to enable local commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction requirements within their areas of responsibility by carrying out programs that will immediately assist the indigenous population."

Fingar told The Cable that that while "travelling to Anbar to write the supplement provided an opportunity to become aware of the developments in the province and the work of the Governor," the editorial credibility of the publication was not for sale.

"The decision to grant the award was made after my return from Anbar, based on my experiences there and without consultation with the U.S. government, Anbar governor or any external sources," she said, "The decision is an editorial one alone."

She admitted that the special edition of the publication was paid for by the U.S. government and claimed it had a clearly identified sponsor, but the website version of the supplement made no mention the U.S. government involvement.

"As per standard practice in the [business to business] specialist publishing business, the cost of the report was underwritten by a clearly identified sponsor -- in this case the US government -- but as per the very strict editorial code of conduct under which we operate at The Financial Times Ltd, reporting and editing were carried out independently and with no interference," said Fingar, who described her reporting as "balanced and accurate.'

"We stand by our coverage," she said.

The Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite an expansion of the National Security Council staff, coordination of national security policy is still dysfunctional and there is a lack of strategic guidance from President Obama, according to a group of leading outside experts and former officials.

"Reform must take place," said James Locher, President & CEO of the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), "If you did not like what happened in the last 7 or 8 years... you're not going to like what's coming in the future."

"Momentum for reform is building, but it is largely rhetoric and good intentions," reads PNSR's new report . The congressionally funded group was begun as the result of a cooperative agreement between the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "Strategic management of the national security system remains absent and is desperately needed to make it integrated, cohesive, and agile," the report continues.

Calling reform of the national security infrastructure "the number one national security issue," Locher said that America's ability to operate in international arenas the world over is "crippled" by the dysfunction within the system.

He called the White House's national security staff "incredibly weak," preventing integration and coordination that the National Security Council should be doing.

"There's almost no strategic guidance from the president or the executive office of the president," Locher said, adding, "We have almost no knowledge management in the national security system."

There's also no effective means for delegating the president's authority, he added.

Locher spoke a an event rolling out the latest PNSR report at the New American Foundation, hosted by its foreign policy chief and editor of The Washington Note Steve Clemons.

Clemons noted that according to the Goldwater-Nichols act, President Obama was required to submit a national security strategy by June 18, 150 days into his presidency, but he failed to do so.

The "Guiding Coalition" that oversaw the PNSR report included heavyweights such as former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, former Amb. Robert Blackwill, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, retired Adm. Ed Giambastiani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, plus Washington players Brent Scowcroft, Thomas Pickering, and Joseph Nye.

Last November's version of the PNSR report included input from now Obama officials Jim Jones, James Steinberg, Michele Flournoy, and Dennis Blair. It declared that "the national security of the United States of America is fundamentally at risk."