Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng called into a U.S. congressional hearing Tuesday -- for the second time this month -- and asked the international community not to forget about his extended family members and friends suffering government harassment in China.

Chen was able to speak at the hearing through the iPhone of his friend, Pastor Bob Fu, who was testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Smith has long been active on the Chen case and is determined to raise awareness about the plight of Chen's associates in China, as well as that of women in China facing abuse of the one-child policy through forced abortions and forced sterilization. Smith has accused the Obama administration of avoiding the very issues that landed Chen in hot water with the Chinese authorities.

At Tuesday's hearing, Chen related the story of his brother and sister-in-law, who are still trapped in his home province of Shandong and are still facing violent retribution from local officials due to Chen's daring April 26 escape from house arrest.

"I just want to talk about what happened to my other family members after I escaped from my home. On April 26, around midnight a group of local government thugs led by the local township leader raided my elder brother's home and started beating them violently," Chen said in Chinese, with Fu translating.

"My elder brother was taken away by these thugs without any reasoning and then they came back and started beating my nephew, using sticks, violently beating him up. For three hours, the bleeding on his head and face did not stop. It was so violent he had to defend himself."

Chen's nephew was arrested after the incident and has not been heard from since, though he has been accused of attempted murder.

"This charge against my nephew for intentional homicide is totally trumped up. To be charged with this in his own home when defending against intruders is totally irrational and unreasonable," Chen said.

He said that the local township leader in his family's hometown has led groups of thugs to harass his family and raid his home several times, so the recent action is part of a pattern. But the reprisal attacks since his escape have been especially violent.

"After my nephew was beaten up, he was waiting to surrender himself and the police came back again and violently beat up my sister in law," he said. "Right now I am not able to communicate with them anymore because all of their communication tools were confiscated already."

Chen's immediate family is doing fine and he is in contact with the U.S. Embassy every day, he said. But 10 of his closest friends and extended family have be arrested, beaten, or detained by authorities.

"I'm not a hero, I just do what my conscience ask me to do. I cannot be silent and cannot be quiet when facing these evils against women and children," Chen said.

In his opening statement, Smith said that Chen's application for permission had not yet been approved by the Chinese government and that he and his immediate family are now living under de facto house arrest in a Beijing hospital.

"With the exception of the half-hour each morning and afternoon that the children are escorted outside by one of the nurses, he and his family are not allowed to leave the hospital and no one is allowed inside to see them," said Smith.

"Chinese nationals are not the only ones prohibited from trying to meet Mr. Chen. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China reported in early May that officials threatened to revoke the visas of foreign journalists who entered the hospital without permission," he said. "I would earnestly ask them not to forget Mr. Chen and his family, or his extended family and others who are risking their security and lives on his behalf. The story, unfortunately, is far from over."

Smith had invited Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and State Department Counselor Harold Koh to testify at today's hearing, but the State Department demurred.

"Given that sensitive diplomacy is ongoing, the committee acceded to the department's request to defer testifying on this matter until it is resolved," a senior State Department official told The Cable.

"I fully expect to have them at a hearing in the near future," Smith told The Cable in reply.

The Defense Department and Congress are playing chicken over $600 billion of mandatory defense cuts identified by a process known as "sequestration," but a compromise probably won't surface until after the November elections, according to former top Obama defense official Michèle Flournoy.

"I think during that period after the election and before the sequestration goes into effect [on Jan. 3], that will be the period when people will become intensely focused on this," Flournoy said in response to a question from The Cable at an event Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute.

Flournoy, who stepped down in February as under secretary of defense for policy, was speaking on a panel with retired Gen. David Barno, now with the Center for a New American Security, AEI's Tom Donnelly, and Michael Waltz of the New America Foundation.

Flournoy said she was not aware of any planning going on inside the Pentagon for the possibility that sequestration will occur, even though President Barack Obama has promised to institute the cuts if Congress doesn't find a way around them. The Budget Control Act of 2011, passed by both parties and signed by Obama, would mandate $600 billion in defense and $600 billion in cuts to non-security spending, such as funds for Medicare providers, over 10 years if Congress doesn't agree on $1.2 billion worth of discretionary spending cuts over the same time period.

"The onus is really on Congress to exercise the discipline, the political courage, the pragmatism to reach a budget deal that avoids sequestration, which would impose draconian cuts in a mindless way that would have severe and negative impacts for our national security," she said.

Flournoy said that a short-term solution could be possible, but probably not before the election, because any compromise would be a "huge political risk" for a candidate facing voters. She emphasized that a deal to avoid sequestration should include cuts to programs favored by Democrats and Republicans alike.

"I think frankly we would be wise to spend our time trying to build a balanced package ... tax reform, spending cuts, and more investment in things that drive American competitiveness," she said.

Asked by The Cable if she thought it was time for a woman to become secretary of defense and whether she would take the job, Flournoy demurred: "I didn't hear your question."

Barno said the lame-duck session will be filled with emergency issues that Congress will want to deal with, such as the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the Alternative Minimum Tax, Medicare physician benefits, and another fight over increasing the debt ceiling.

"We definitely have a looming train wreck in December," he said. "In that list, sequestration for defense is going to be fairly low on that pecking order, if you look at how many American homes it would immediately impact."

Donnelly argued that so far, only Republicans have put forth any concrete ideas to avoid sequestration. There are bills in the House and Senate that would take the money from federal workforce reductions, but last week House leadership unveiled an entirely new idea.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) wrote in an op-ed last week that the money should be taken from a host of spending items, including food stamps, federal workforce benefits, and by prohibiting future government bailouts.

"These savings will replace the arbitrary sequester cuts and lay the groundwork for further efforts to avert the spending-driven economic crisis before us," they wrote. "Unless we act, the sequester will take effect. We do not believe this is in the national interest, and the President claims that he agrees."

The panel was moderated by AEI's Danielle Pletka, who was filling in for Peter David, the Washington bureau chief of the Economist, who died in a car accident last weekend.

President George W. Bush predicted Tuesday that the remaining authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East are unsustainable and will give way to movements driven by the quest for freedom and human rights.

"These are extraordinary times in the history of freedom," Bush said in Tuesday morning remarks. "In the Arab Spring, we have seen the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism. Great change has come to a region where many thought it impossible. The idea that Arab people are somehow content with oppression has been discredited forever."

Bush was speaking at an event to celebrate and publicize the "Freedom Collection," a set of artifacts from democratic struggles around the world, collected by the George W. Bush Institute, run by former magazine editor and State Department official James Glassman.

Bush cautioned that there were risks to democratic change and that sometime overthrowing authoritarian regimes leads to periods of instability, but argued that American had to always support those fighting against oppression.

"Some look at the risks inherent in democratic change -- particularly in the Middle East and North Africa -- and find the dangers too great. America, they argue, should be content with supporting the flawed leaders they know in the name of stability," he said. "But in the long run, this foreign-policy approach is not realistic. It is not realistic to presume that so-called stability enhances our national security. Nor is it within the power of America to indefinitely preserve the old order, which is inherently unstable."

In a return to the soaring rhetoric of his second inaugural address, Bush said that America's role in each country undergoing change in the Arab world will be different but that the United States must always side with people against dictators and should do everything it can to help emerging democracies build civic institutions and a pluralist political culture.

"America does not get to choose if a freedom revolution should begin or end in the Middle East, or elsewhere. It only gets to choose what side it is on. The tactics of promoting freedom will vary, case by case," he said. "But America's message should ring clear and strong: We stand for freedom -- and for the institutions and habits that make freedom work for everyone. The day when a dictator falls or yields to a democratic movement is glorious."

Bush was introduced by Syrian activist Ammar Abdulhamid. "All of us here today join you in hoping and praying for the end of violence and the advance of freedom in Syria," Bush said to him, joking, "I actually found my freedom by leaving Washington."

Chinese activist Bob Fu spoke after Bush. He was followed by Laura Bush, who introduced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who answered questions live via Skype.

Suu Kyi said that while she favored a non-violent approach to confronting dictatorships, she understood that the Syrian people had no choice but to meet the government's violence with violence of their own.

"We should all help people's struggle for freedom around the world," she said. "I would like to say to the people of Syria, we are with you in your struggle for freedom."

Suu Kyi will soon go on her first trip abroad in 24 years after recently being released from house arrest and elected to the Burmese parliament. She will travel to London and Oslo, Norway, where she will formally accept her peace prize, granted in 1991 while she was under house arrest.

Suu Kyi could not confirm rumors that a large number of Burmese government ministers are about to resign. She did say that she supports Sen. John McCain's idea to "suspend" some sanctions against the Burmese state as further incentive for the military government to continue reforms.

"This is a possible first step," she said. "That is a way of sending a strong message that we will try to help the process of democratization but if this is not maintained we will have to think of other ways of making sure the aspirations of the Burmese people for democracy is respected."

"I believe that sanctions have been effective in persuading this government to go for change," she said. "I do advocate caution, though. I sometimes feel that people are too optimistic about what we are seeing in Burma. You have to remember that the change in Burma is not irreversible."

Syrian government forces continue to attack opposition forces, civilians, and aid volunteers, preventing the international community from getting emergency aid to the Syrian people, USAID has detailed in a series of internal reports obtained by The Cable.

In its latest "humanitarian update," written at the end of April, USAID reported in detail the extensive attacks perpetrated by Syrian Arab Republic Government (SARG) troops, despite an ongoing U.N. monitoring mission and in direct violation of the "cease-fire" there. The USAID report, marked "sensitive but unclassified," sourced its findings to U.N. representatives in Syria as well as representatives of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), and other aid groups on the ground.

"U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan expressed concerns regarding reports of SARG reprisal attacks in areas where Syrian civilians met with U.N. observers, including in Hamah and Damascus governorates," the report stated. "The observers report that SARG forces have not withdrawn heavy weapons from urban centers -- a condition of the U.N. and Arab League supported ceasefire and peace plan that went into effect on April 12."

Although the U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of 300 monitors, the report could only confirm that "at least 11" U.N. monitors had arrived in Syria as of April 24. (Additional monitors have reportedly arrived since then.)

Meanwhile, USAID reported that government forces attacked an SARC vehicle April 24 that was evacuating wounded civilians in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, killing one aid volunteer and injuring three. Twenty-six aid workers were trapped in an SARC building following the attack and the SARC had to negotiate a temporary ceasefire between opposition and government forces to get them out, USAID reported.

Following a request from SARC, USAID contractors have suspended the deployment of mobile medical units that were providing health-care services in and around Damascus, the report said.

"In addition to emergency medical needs resulting from ongoing violence, a USAID/OFDA partner report increasing constraints on the availability of medications for chronic diseases, which are prohibitively expensive for Syrians without financial assistance," the report stated. "In addition, the U.N. World Health Organization representatives have expressed concern about the health of displaced Syrians in Jordan."

A USAID contractor is working to train Syrian doctors in Jordan so they can return to Syria and provide life saving medical care there, and a USAID contractor has procured 10,000 kg of medical supplies for use in Syria and is trying to get those supplies into the country, according to the report.

In an April 26 press briefing, USAD Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Christa Capozzola criticized the Syrian regime for not allowing emergency aid supplies to reach the Syrian people and called for more help.

"While some aid is reaching people in need through the Red Crescent, other U.N. agencies, and other international organizations, current humanitarian access restrictions remain a significant challenge to the aid effort," she said. "After months of working under these conditions, the aid organizations working in Syria are extremely stretched. To continue alleviating suffering and saving lives, they need more support and capacity from the international community.

The U.S. government has spent $39.4 million on assistance for Syria in fiscal 2012, the report stated. The report noted that only $33 million of this assistance has been publicly reported before now.

Overall, the USAID report concluded that there had been at least 9,000 civilian deaths in Syria as of March 27, according to U.N. figures, although the current number is likely higher. There are between 300,000 and 500,000 internally displaced Syrians, according to the report, 610,000 estimated refuges inside Syria, and approximately 66,000 Syrian refuges who have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq.

The USAID report was marked sensitive but unclassified (SBU).

Senators from both parties are now urging the Obama administration to drastically scale back U.S. sanctions on Burma in light of that country's moves toward reform and democratization.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John McCain (R-AZ), who has traveled to Burma twice in the past year, announced Monday morning that he now support the "suspension" of a host of sanctions against Burma and the ruling regime.

"Another major test for U.S. diplomacy is Burma," McCain said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I have traveled to Burma twice over the past year. And to be sure, they still have a long way to go, especially in stopping the violence and pursuing genuine reconciliation with the country's ethnic minority communities. But the Burmese President and his allies in the government I believe are sincere about reform, and they are making real progress."

McCain praised the April elections that brought Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and many members of the National League for Democracy into power, despite some irregularities, and said they warranted U.S. temporary lifting of all economic sanctions except for the arms embargo against the Burmese military and targeted sanctions against individuals who have undermined human rights and the rule of law there.

"This would not be a lifting of sanctions, just a suspension. And this step, as well as any additional easing of sanctions, would depend on continued progress and reform in Burma," McCain cautioned.

He said the United States also must set up a regime for ensuring corporate responsibility in Burma as its economy opens and argued that U.S. businesses should still be barred from interacting with Burmese state-owned enterprises due to the risk of enriching hard-liners inside the Burmese system who are resisting reforms.

"U.S. businesses will never win a race to the bottom with some of their Asian, or even European, competitors. And they should not try," McCain said. "Rather, they should align themselves with Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people -- who want the kinds of responsible investment, high labor and environmental standards, and support for human rights and national sovereignty that define American business at its best."

McCain joins Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, who came out May 4 for lifting all economic sanctions against Burma in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that was also signed by his subcommittee counterpart Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). Webb made his third trip to Burma in April.

"At this critical moment, it is imperative that our policy toward Burma be forward thinking, providing incentives for further reforms and building the capacity of reformers in the government to push for additional change," Webb and Inhofe wrote. "We urge the Administration to take action under its own authority, and seize this opportunity to support the Burmese people in their efforts to form an open, democratic government that respects and protects the rights of all."

The administration has made several small concessions to the Burmese following Clinton's trip there last December, such as nominating Derek Mitchell to become the first U.S. ambassador to Burma in more than 20 years and restarting U.S.-Burmese cooperation on some development and counternarcotics programs.

In testimony before Webb's subcommittee on April 26, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joe Yun detailed the administration's actions to date, noting ongoing concern about the Burmese regime's failings in the areas of human rights, and said the administration would take a slow but steady approach to easing sanctions further.

"We continue to emphasize that much work remains to be done in Burma and that easing sanctions will remain a step-by-step process. We have pursued a carefully calibrated posture, retaining as much flexibility as possible should reforms slow or reverse, while pressing the Burmese government for further progress in key areas," Yun said.

"We have serious and continuing concerns with respect to human rights, democracy, and nonproliferation, and our policy continues to blend both pressure and engagement to encourage progress in all areas."

Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa came to Washington this week to attend his son's college graduation, but he left with hands full of gifts from the U.S. State Department, which announced new arms sales to Bahrain today.

The crown prince's son just graduated from American University, where the Bahraini ruling family recently shelled out millions for a new building at AU's School of International Service. But while he was in town, the crown prince met with a slew of senior U.S. officials and congressional leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John McCain, as well as several other Washington VIPs.

On Friday afternoon, the State Department announced it was moving forward on a host of sales to the Bahraini Defense Forces, the Bahraini National Guard, and the Bahraini Coast Guard. The State Department said the decision to move forward with the sales was made solely in the interest of U.S. national security, but outside experts see the move as meant to strengthen the crown prince in his struggle inside the ruling family.

"We've made this decision, I want to emphasize, on national security grounds," a senior administration official told reporters on a Friday conference call. "We've made this decision mindful of the fact that there remain a number of serious, unresolved human rights issues in Bahrain, which we expect the government of Bahrain to address."

The official noted that the United States is maintaining its hold on the sale of several items the Bahrainis want, including Humvees, TOW missiles, tear gas, stun grenades, small arms and ammunition.

"The items that we are moving forward with are those that are not typically used for crowd control and that we would not anticipate would be used against protesters in any scenario," the official said.

The official declined to specify items on the list, but multiple sources familiar with the details told The Cable they include six more harbor patrol boats, communications equipment for Bahrain's air defense system, ground-based radars, AMRAAM air-to-air missile systems, Seahawk helicopters, Avenger air-defense systems, parts for F-16 fighter engines, refurbishment items for Cobra helicopters, and night-vision equipment.

The United States also agreed to work on legislation to allow the transfer of a U.S. frigate, will allow the Bahrainis to look at (but not yet purchase) armored personnel carriers, and will ask Congress for $10 million in foreign military financing for Bahrain in fiscal 2013.

Opponents of arms sales to Bahrain were quick to criticize the package, arguing that the administration is sending the wrong message to the regime at a time when the violence between government forces and protesters is actually increasing, as are allegations of prisoner abuse by Bahraini security forces.

"This is exactly the wrong time to be selling arms to the government of Bahrain. Things are getting worse, not better," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said in a statement to The Cable. "The country is becoming even more polarized and both sides are becoming more entrenched. Reform is the ultimate goal and we should be using every tool and every bit of leverage we have to achieve that goal. The State department's decision is essentially giving away the store without the government of Bahrain bringing anything to the table."

On the conference call, administration officials could not name one concession or deliverable the crown prince gave or promised in exchange for the goodies he is bringing home with him.

But outside analysts believe the administration's strategy is more nuanced, and that the real goal of the arms sales is to bolster the crown prince's standing inside the ruling family in his pitched battle with hard-liners over the way ahead.

"The administration didn't want the crown prince to go home empty-handed because they wanted to empower him," said Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, who was arrested in Bahrain while documenting protests there last month. "They placed a lot of hope in him, but he can't deliver unless the king lets him and right now the hard-liners in the ruling family seem to have the upper hand."

The crown prince has been stripped of many of his official duties recently, but is still seen as the ruling family member who is most amenable to working constructively with the opposition and with the United States. It's unclear whether sending him home with arms sales will have any effect on internal Bahraini ruling family politics, however.

"That's the gamble the administration is taking, that it helps him show he can deliver something," Malinowski said. "But there's no guarantee the government will do what we all hope it does. They might just as easily conclude ‘We don't have to empower the crown prince at home; we just have to send him to America.'"

While the crown prince has been in Washington, hard-liners like the prime minister and the minister of the royal court have wielded their control over state media to bash the United States and accuse the U.S. government of fomenting the unrest in Bahrain.

"[The] trend in Bahrain is the redoubling of the anti-American media onslaught witnessed in most aggressive form last summer. This is usually a very clear sign that the State Department is pressuring for a deal to be done, and that some in the royal family are fighting back via their allies in society," wrote Justin Gengler, an academic and blogger focused on Bahrain.

He detailed a list of conspiratorial, anti-American allegations in the Bahraini state-controlled media over the last two weeks and noticed that the state media is focusing again on the case of Ludo Hood, the former political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain who was sent home "after being the focus of threats by pro-government citizens."

A high-level delegation from the opposition al-Wefaq party was in Washington this week as well, but they did leave empty handed.

"Many in the administration want to empower the crown prince as the reformer in the royal family against the hard-liners, and didn't want to send him home empty handed after his visit," said Cole Bockenfeld, director of advocacy at the Project on Middle East Democracy. "But no matter how you look at it here in Washington, on the street in Bahrain this will be perceived as the U.S. supporting a regime that is still doing horrible things."

The Republican Party has drifted so far to the right and become so partisan in recent years that President Ronald Reagan wouldn't even want to be a part of it, former Nebraska GOP senator Chuck Hagel told The Cable.

"Reagan would be stunned by the party today," Hagel said in a long interview in his office at Georgetown University, where he now teaches. He also serves as co-chair of President Barack Obama's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Reagan wanted to do away with nuclear weapons, raised taxes, made deals with congressional Democrats, sought compromises and consensus to fix problems, and surrounded himself with moderates as well as Republican hard-liners, Hagel noted. None of that is characterized by the current GOP leadership, he said. In his eyes, the rise of the Tea Party and the influx of new GOP lawmakers in Congress have driven the party away from common sense and consensus-based solutions.

"Reagan wouldn't identify with this party. There's a streak of intolerance in the Republican Party today that scares people. Intolerance is a very dangerous thing in a society because it always leads to a tragic ending," he said. "Ronald Reagan was never driven by ideology. He was a conservative but he was a practical conservative. He wanted limited government but he used government and he used it many times. And he would work with the other party."

The situation today is similar to where the GOP found itself in the early 1950s, when there was a battle for the direction of the party over the party's identity, Hagel said. Dwight Eisenhower and his moderate allies won that fight, diminishing the influence of extremists like Joe McCarthy, Hagel said.

But today, the extremists are winning.

"Now the Republican Party is in the hands of the right, I would say the extreme right, more than ever before," said Hagel. "You've got a Republican Party that is having difficulty facing up to the fact that if you look at what happened during the first 8 years of the century, it was under Republican direction."

George W. Bush started two wars while cutting taxes, added an unfunded prescription drug mandate, and ran up the deficit, but today's GOP leaders can't reconcile that history with their agenda today, Hagel noted.

"The Republican Party is dealing with this schizophrenia. It was the Republican leadership that got us into this mess," he said. "If Nixon or Eisenhower were alive today, they would be run out of the party."

Hagel decried the departure of the World War II generation, including figures like Ted Stevens, Bob Dole, and now Richard Lugar, and along with them the leadership provided by GOP senators who put national interests above party politics.

"They made it work because their obligation and responsibility was to a higher cause than their party. They were all partisan but they all knew their higher responsibility was to move this country forward and resolve issues through compromise and consensus. We've lost that glue in the Congress."

When moderate Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) resigned his leadership post in the Senate last year, that was a clear indication that the party had no room left for internal dissent, according to Hagel.

"How many times has that happened, to walk away from a leadership position so he would have more flexibility to find consensus and solve real-life issues," Hagel said. "There has been a litmus test, purity factor that has been applied over the years, I saw it in the Senate myself."

Hagel said that the GOP's swing to the extreme right is a response to overall unhappiness throughout the country with the state of the economy, Congress, and politics in general. He predicted that after the voters see that far-right politics don't work, the pendulum will swing back toward moderation.

"We have to go through this. There aren't any shortcuts. The Tea Party of the coffee party or the donut party or something was going to come out of this, it was very predictable," he said. "We're going to have to play that out."

Meanwhile, the dynamic of a GOP controlled by the extreme right is having an effect on the likely GOP nominee, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

"Whether it's Mitt Romney or anybody seeking office, you are captive to the positions of the party to some extent," Hagel said. "What latitude Romney has to shape the party as we go into the election is somewhat limited because of the primary he's had to run."

How Romney positions himself in the run up to the election and whether that results in a win or a loss will have a huge effect on the direction of the Republican Party for years to come, he said. He also urged Romney to provide more details on his plans to fix the country's problems.

"You can criticize the president all you want, but what the American people are going to be listening very carefully to is: How are you going to fix them? How will you do things different and better from the incumbent president? That's where the election will be won or lost."

In the end, both parties are to blame for Americans' disaffection with politics and government and more Americans are turning away from Democrats and Republicans as a result, Hagel said.

"It's evolved into a paralysis," he said. "I think it's the most serious governance crisis we've seen in this country in a long time. You may not like government, but it has to work."

Frustration with North Korea's ongoing nuclear weapons and missile programs has pushed Congress to reopen the debate in Washington over whether the United States should reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea.

The House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment to the fiscal 2013 national defense authorization bill that supports "steps to deploy additional conventional forces of the United States and redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the Western Pacific region," and mandates that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta submit a report on the feasibility and logistics of redeploying forward-based nuclear weapons there, "in response to the ballistic missile and nuclear weapons developments of North Korea and the other belligerent actions North Korea has made against allies of the United States."

The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), was approved by a vote of 32-26, with all Republicans, except for Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), and two Democrats in favor. It comes only weeks after another committee member, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), demanded the administration investigate North Korea's apparent acquisition of Chinese-made mobile ICBM launchers.

"We in the last many years have appealed to China to help us negotiate with North Korea to bring them in line in the quest for peace in the world... In fact, China has now embarked on selling nuclear components to North Korea," Franks said at at the committee's Wednesday markup. "Consequently it's become time for us as a nation to look to our deterrent and our ability to take care of ourselves and work with our allies to do everything we can to deter and to be able to defend ourselves against any future belligerence or threats from North Korea."

The United States stockpiled nuclear weapons in South Korea for 33 years before President George H.W. Bush removed them in 1991 as part of his effort to withdraw all overseas tactical nukes, except a few in NATO countries. Since then, every so often South Korean politicians raise the idea of reintroducing them as a response to North Korean aggression.

One senior South Korean politician argued this week that North Korea's ongoing belligerence justified a new discussion about the issue.

"There is no reason not to respond in a proportional manner [to the DPRK's military threat]," Conservative Party lawmaker and presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon said in a press conference in Seoul on Thursday. "The threat of a counter-nuclear force may be the only thing that can change North Korea's perception of South Korea."

In early 2011, the White House WMD Czar Gary Samore told a South Korean reporter that the U.S. would be willing to deploy tactical nukes to South Korea, after which the White House quickly backpeddled Samore's remarks and insisted the issue was not under discussion.

"Our policy remains in support of a non-nuclear Korean peninsula," Robert Jensen, deputy spokesman for the National Security Council, told Yonhap News Agency after the Samore comments. "There is no plan to change that policy. Tactical nuclear weapons are unnecessary for the defense of South Korea and we have no plan or intention to return them."