Obama Administration

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.

When North Korea's lead nuclear negotiator Ri Gun (left) makes his tour of the United States next week, all eyes will be on the State Department, which is planning to make the first face-to-face, government-to-government contact with Kim Jong Il's regime in quite a long time.

Ri arrives in New York today and then will be in San Diego early next week to attend what's called the Northeast Asian Cooperation Dialogue. He will then come back to New York later in the week to hold "track two" (nonofficial) meetings organized by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), a private insiders' policy group that has been key in organizing such meetings in the past.

The State Department issued the visa for Ri but has been extremely cagey about who will be going to meet with him. Spokesman Ian Kelly said today that State Department officials will probably meet with him in both cities, but no final decision has been made on who that would be.

The hands-on favorite among Korea watchers is Sung Kim, who is officially titled the "special envoy for the six-party talks." Those talks have been stalled since North Korea unilaterally withdrew in April. Kim was previously deputy to former lead negotiator Chris Hill, then assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs. He met with Ri in New York last November. Another leading contender is Korea desk chief Kurt Tong.

Conspicuously absent from the discussion over who will meet Ri is Stephen Bosworth, Obama's choice for special representative for North Korea policy. Bosworth has been handling the North Korea issue for State part time, maintaining his other full-time gig as dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

The North Koreans have issued repeated invitations for Bosworth to visit Pyongyang, invitations that have gone completely unanswered. The choice of Bosworth, a sacred cow of the Asia policy community for decades, was seen by many as an effort to smooth out relations over the issue with allies Japan and South Korea, countries to which Bosworth has deep ties.

There is a long tradition of engaging the North Koreans through unofficial channels and by using experts that Pyongyang prefers as proxies, such as University of Georgia professor Han Park or journalist Selig Harrison. NCAFP has been at the center of what's called the "New York channel," which sometimes includes contact with North Korea's delegation at the United Nations. The key figure in NCAFP is professor and author Donald Zagoria.

If and when Kim or another U.S. official meets with Ri, the implication is that they would be setting the stage for a resumption of talks, even though the North Korean and U.S. positions on terms of discussion are still far apart. The Obama administration is insisting that any bilateral talks be in the context of the multilateral process and be based on the previous agreement North Korea signed promising to denuclearize.

The North Koreans, however, want direct talks with the U.S. without promising anything and without including regional powers. Kelly, the State Department spokesman, acknowledged that next week's meetings are essentially that.

"This is really kind of a hybrid," said Kelly, "It's not just track two. It's really a combination."

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Barack Obama did in fact deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, former prize winner and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev said in an exclusive interview with Radio Free Europe.

"I won it unexpectedly and he won it unexpectedly," Gorby told the U.S. government-funded outlet based in Prague. "America means a lot [to the world] and will continue to do so for a long time ... That's why [we have to] support a president of such stature, who gave his own country and the world such a strong push forward. And it's already showing real effects. That's honorable."

The former leader also talks about the state of Russian democracy, the Russian opposition, and corruption in the Russian government. RFE characterizes Gorbachev's role and reputiation:

Hugely popular abroad, Gorbachev has long been widely disliked at home for bringing about the end of communism. He remained active in politics, co-founding the Social Democratic Party. But when he ran for president in 1996, he won less than 1 percent of the vote.

Since Putin's rise to power in 2000, Gorbachev has often been among the first to criticize new authoritarian measures in Russia, especially restrictions against the free press, independent politicians, and nongovernmental organizations. But he's been a consistently ardent supporter of the man many believe responsible for the country's direction: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Check out the video here:

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Before John Kerry could wind down from his whirlwind tour of South Asia this week, the U.S. Senate moved to pass new restrictions on aid to Pakistan, the thorny issue that required the senator to go to Islamabad in the first place.

Kerry was there to reassure Pakistanis that the U.S. was not infringing on their sovereignty after the botched rollout of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package angered many in Islamabad. Conditions on the relatively small proportion of military aid in that bill were not well received, and sparked a harsh reaction from both the Pakistani military and anti-American political elements there.

With that situation largely ameliorated, the Senate may have given Kerry a new headache today. There are several conditions on billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Pakistan found in the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill that has just now gone to President Obama's desk for signing.

The conditions include monitoring of goods and services the U.S. is giving to Pakistan and reports by the U.S. administration certifying that the money is being spent in ways that contribute to U.S. interests.

Congressional Quarterly's John Donnelly dug out all the details (subscription only):

One provision affects the $1.6 billion the bill would authorize for a Coalition Support Fund to reimburse other countries, mostly Pakistan, for logistical and military support for counterinsurgency operations. The funds, like those for all the aid programs, are appropriated separately, in this case by the Defense spending measure (HR 3326), which a House-Senate conference is writing.

The Coalition Support Fund has accounted for 70 percent of the $12.3 billion in American military and non-military aid to Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001 - money the U.S. government had little insight into or oversight of, according to a February report from the Government Accountability Office.

The defense authorization measure would require that, before any more such money is spent, the secretaries of Defense and State must certify that doing so is in the U.S. national interest and will not adversely affect the region's balance of power - a polite way of saying the money should not be spent on weapons aimed at India.

And in a provision that an aide said reflects congressional discontent with a lack of controls over the reimbursement program, the measure would require the administration to look for a new approach to garnering Pakistan's support for military operations.

Another certification is required before the Pentagon can begin spending any of the $700 million it might receive from requested State Department appropriations in the coming fiscal year for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund. That program, begun in fiscal 2009, is meant to train and equip the Pakistani military to fight insurgents and terrorists on its territory.

The defense authorization bill would require that, before those funds start to flow, the Defense secretary must certify to Congress that Pakistan is making "concerted efforts" to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban on the basis that Pakistan sees such initiatives as in its own interest...

Finally, after the bill becomes law, the president would have to report to Congress every 180 days on "progress toward long-term security and stability in Pakistan," including the effectiveness of security assistance to Pakistan in contributing to the goal of defeating al Qaeda. The report would have to include goals, timelines and measures of progress.

If I were Kerry, I wouldn't put away my travel toothbrush just yet...

Washington has been abuzz with stories speculating about the role of special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, the gregarious U.S. diplomat who has been somewhat absent from public appearances recently.

Salacious headlines such as "Holbrooke missing from Afghan talks" and "Where's Dick?" have led off articles citing unnamed sources to speculate that the White House had sought to diminish Holbrooke's usually public persona, especially since the last-minute diplomacy to convince Afghan President Hamid Karzai to allow an election runoff was led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry.

But in an exclusive interview with The Cable, Holbrooke refuted the reports of his marginalization with a mix of indignation and bewilderment. He's been intimately involved in all the goings-on related to the situation in Afghanistan and his lack of media appearances is due to his hectic and relentless work as part of the administration's ongoing review of the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, he said.

"I didn't know I was missing in action because I was kind of busy all day," said Holbrooke, denying that the White House had given him any instructions to lay low or stay out of the public eye, as has been alleged.

Holbrooke and his staff have been working late hours every day to feed information to the endless string of White House meetings on Afghanistan. He broke away Wednesday evening to attend a reception at the New America Foundation to celebrate the publication of the latest book by his wife, Kati Marton.

He said he "has no interest" in the press stories discussing his lack of face time with the media, but took exception to one editorial in the New York Times, which wondered aloud about his status.

Holbrooke's absence from Afghanistan during what many see as a crucial time in Afghan politics also spurred rumors and speculation that Holbrooke was not welcome there because of a reported feud with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a feud that Holbrooke has clearly denied.

"The truth is that I go Afghanistan every two months and I was there less than two months ago. When I came back, I knew we were plunging into the biggest imaginable policy debate," Holbrooke said. "So [Secretary of State] Hillary [Clinton] and I mutually felt that my place at this time was to stay here."

Holbrooke said he will travel to Afghanistan and India next month, on the tail end of Clinton's trip to Pakistan, but the exact dates haven't been worked out yet.

"That was always the plan," he said.

His concern is that he isn't sure about the timing of President Obama's decision to rollout the new Af-Pak strategy and he didn't want to be abroad when the announcement is made.

"This is the most intense policy review before a big decision that I've ever been involved in," said Holbrooke. "He's really thinking it through."

There will be a principals meeting on Af-Pak in the White House Thursday and a National Security Council meeting led by Obama within the next few days.

Holbrooke said he had 25 conversations with Kerry throughout the recent election negotiations, including two on Wednesday (although he did not attend Kerry's latest meeting with Obama). Kerry's preplanned presence in the region to deal with the fallout of his Pakistan aid bill was fortuitous, Holbrooke explained, and he fully supported Kerry's representation of the U.S. government in the region this week.

"We encouraged John to get in on this," he said, "I have never seen a better interaction between a member of Congress and an executive branch on a major issue and the stakes yesterday were extraordinarily high."

He rejected the notion that Kerry was supplanting his role as the face of American policy in Afghanistan.

"Only a troublemaking journalist would think of something like that," Holbrooke joked.

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The Obama administration's new policy toward Burma follows a strategy of mixing engagement and pressure, much as the administration is attempting in other thorny areas of foreign policy such as Iran, Sudan, and North Korea, to name a few.      

Also like those examples, the new Burma policy will depend somewhat on cooperation from other countries that have significant involvement and interests there. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell traveled to China last week and asked senior Chinese leaders to "play a positive role" in promoting reform in Burma.

"We will need to work with friends and partners to achieve our goals, including stepped up dialogue and interactions with countries such as China and India that have traditionally close relationships with Burma's military leaders," Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday morning.

Campbell will travel to Burma with his deputy Scot Marciel in the coming weeks, where he plans to meet with regime leaders, prodemocracy advocates, and he might even sit down imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, a State Department official confirmed.

The committee's ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL, a skeptic of engaging Burma's military junta, pointed out in the hearing that China been so far unwilling or unable to prevent the Burmese junta from waging war on ethnic minority militias, a major source of humanitarian strife and a problem for Chinese border areas, where the refugees from such fighting typically flee.

Moreover, the Chinese seem to be already preparing for more bloodshed before next year's Burmese elections, she pointed out, calling into question again the Obama administration's contention that China can or would be helpful on this issue.

"China has reportedly begun construction of refugee camps on the Burmese border in anticipation of a pre-election military offensive by the military junta against ethnic armed militias," Ros-Lehtinen said to Campbell, "If these militias reject the regime's demands to be incorporated into a border guard force and a bloodbath ensues, how will this impact our new policy of engagement with this bloodthirsty regime?"

Campbell could only respond that the U.S. deplores military actions against ethnic groups inside Burma and that he has asked the Chinese to urge restraint in their dealings with the junta.

"The truth is, as you well know, that some of these military actions are not on the horizon" he testified. "They've already occurred."

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Jim DeMint is ready to release his holds against two top administration Latin America appointees, the South Carolina senator told The Cable, and he predicts the State Department will soon recognize the upcoming Honduran elections as legitimate.

In an exclusive interview, DeMint said he was seeing signs of movement from the State Department related to U.S. policy toward Honduras and that he had come close to an agreement over his hold in his meeting earlier this week with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon.

"We got a lot of agreement in the area of coming to terms with recognizing the upcoming elections there," DeMint said of his meeting with Shannon."That's what I'm waiting for from our government, signals that we're going to recognize those elections and move forward."

"I'm anxious to release both of the holds, but I'm not going to do that until I see some positive movements from the administration," he added.

DeMint is singularly holding up Shannon's nomination to become ambassador to Brazil as well as the nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to take Shannon's post. Shannon just returned from Honduras, where he met with de facto regime leader Roberto Micheletti as part of an Organization of American States delegation.

The State Department had been freezing out the Micheletti government, refusing to deal with its leaders directly and even pulling their visas to visit the United States. But as Micheletti gets closer to an agreement with ousted former President Manuel Zelaya, DeMint said the State Department would have no choice but to adjust its approach.

DeMint credited the congressional delegations that have visited Tegucigalpa, including one he led personally, with loosening the State Department's stance. He predicted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would come out in support of the elections once the two sides in Honduras come to terms, but noted that Shannon wasn't yet ready to go that far.

"He realized that it is essential that these elections go forward and are recognized," DeMint said of Shannon. "But he did not say they are ready to recognize them."

Much ado was made last month about the reported rift between U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill and the top U.S. military commander in Baghdad Gen. Ray Odierno, a rift that Hill strenuously denied.

But a real policy dispute lies at the heart of the story, senior diplomatic and military sources in Baghdad tell The Cable. Increasingly, the two men are said to differ over the proper American role in Baghdad, specifically with regard to how heavy a hand the U.S. should apply in trying to influence the decisions of the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The clashing approaches speak to both the institutional culture of the two organizations and their different view of U.S. priorities and interests during this critical time of pullback in the U.S. presence in Iraq, the sources said. "State has a respect for sovereignty and institutional relations," one official explained. "DOD is much more activist and hands on in pretty much every area. Their attitude is if there's a problem you get in there and do what you can to fix it."

The current dispute between the two camps centers around how involved the U.S. should be in the Maliki government's coalition politics ahead of Iraq's January 2010 elections, an event that has Middle East hands worried after the Iraqi parliament again failed Monday to pass a crucial law that would govern the polls. The U.S. government has hinged the entire redeployment strategy around the elections law, one government official working on Iraq in Washington said, warning that if it the process drags on, the withdrawal of U.S. troops will have to be correspondingly delayed.

Maliki has assembled a wide coalition for the upcoming poll. But according to reports, Iraq's lower house of parliament, the Council of Representatives (COR), might remove members of the Independent High Election Commission or withdraw its vote of confidence in the body at the prime minister's behest -- a move that military officials want to try to forestall.

But because the State Department places a high priority on holding the January elections on time as a precursor to fulfilling President Obama's withdrawal timeline, the embassy favors a more hands-off approach, and the White House is said to agree.

"State believes it would be fraught with danger to intervene on these COR decisions, and yet at the same time, it is equally dangerous if the COR decides to remove IHEC officials so close to the election," one senior military source in the region said, arguing that State's concerns about the Jan. 10 election date slipping are overblown.

A senior diplomatic source in Iraq responded by presenting the issue of U.S. involvement in Maliki's dealings as a balance between risk and reward.

"To what extent do we try to pick winners? What are the risks of that? How have we fared in the past with such an approach? This is not so much a civil-military problem, but it does go to the heart of how to disengage," the source explained. "Subtly versus with a heavy hand, could well determine what kind of partner we might have in Iraq."

The source also said State is very involved in the COR processes, including having embassy officers in every meeting and exerting influence when appropriate, such as in prodding individual members and suggesting solutions to get around impasses. "We are on it like the proverbial Iraqi carpet," the source said.

Clash of civilizations

Maliki alluded to the controversy in his remarks Monday after meeting with President Obama, saying that the two had "discussed the issue of the elections and the importance that these elections be held on time based on the national principles."

But the elections aren't the only issue in dispute, some Iraq experts say, pointing to the several outstanding issues between the Maliki government and both the Sunni and Kurdish communities as additional examples of how the State Department wants to disengage from Iraq at a faster pace than the military there.

"The question is, in this period of transition: What are the few things we really need to get traction on, and how much leverage do we have to do that?" said Sam Parker, an Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "It's about how much you should get involved."

Major disputes still exist between the Maliki government and the Iraqi minority communities over such things as the status of the city of Kirkuk, the distribution of oil profits, and payments to former Sunni insurgents who have been persuaded to lay down their arms.

"Odierno continues to believe that the Sunni community depends on the U.S. to defend them against the Maliki government," said one Washington Iraq expert. "State doesn't believe that the U.S. military should play a significant role in any of that."

Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Center on Foreign Relations, said that part of the dispute was a lack of agreement on the trustworthiness of Maliki.

"The key question is, What model of Maliki's motivations do we use as we make policy?" said Biddle. "As long as it's at least an open possibility that he's opportunistic or trying to consolidate power in his office in an unnatural way, either one of those implies increased U.S. engagement."

Some Iraq experts defend State's approach as the most pragmatic and realistic way to acknowledge the fact that the Americans are leaving Iraq.

"The Defense Department has to come to terms with the fact that its influence is waning there," said Marc Lynch, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.

"Sure, Chris Hill isn't doing as much on a personal level as [previous U.S. ambassador] Ryan Crocker did, but it's not clear that he should be," said Lynch. "The surge improved things militarily, but the political problems remain and those will have to be solved by the Iraqis. There is little we can do about it at this point."