When the National Security Council was coming together during the end of the presidential transition, it contained two of Barack Obama's closest foreign-policy advisors, former Senate aides Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, coming in as director of strategic communications and chief of staff, respectively. It also had veteran Democratic party operative and lawyer Thomas Donilon coming in as deputy national security advisor and retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones (ret.) as national security advisor. Despite the new team's range of experience and competencies, what it conspicuously lacked among the top tier was anyone who had worked in an NSC before.

So McDonough and Lippert recruited Clinton-era NSC veteran Mara Rudman, then one of the top NSC advisors to the transition team, to come in as the NSC executive secretary. A former NSC chief of staff and deputy national security advisor to President Bill Clinton, Rudman was asked to help the new team get set up and started, structured right, and help find the right people. She agreed, on the proviso that the assignment would be temporary. With some overlap in responsibilities to the chief of staff job she already had done for the Clinton NSC and now being performed by Lippert, the ExecSec job, described as the council's chief operating officer, involves a lot of high level administrative tasks, managing paper flow and reviewing memos for the national security advisor, and she wanted to get back to policy work on the Middle East.

With the NSC now humming along with more than 200 people, Rudman is moving to become a deputy to Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell, with whom she has already traveled twice to the region. A date has been set for her to join Mitchell's team at the end of the month if all goes as planned, sources at the NSC and State Department said. Her successor as NSC executive secretary is yet to be named, but is said to be someone who is already working there.

Though asked to stay on at the NSC by Donilon and Lippert, and offered the possibility to be "dual-hatted" working for both the NSC and Mitchell, Rudman is said by associates to have wanted to move full time over to Mitchell's shop. The former Senate majority leader and his current deputy, Frederick Hof, are said to be fans. Rudman is expected to have a deputy title, but to serve as the de facto chief of staff for the Mitchell team.

"It was always her and the administration's plan for her time as NSC ExecSec to be short-term to get [it] through the startup (based on her previous NSC experience) and then to transition into a Middle East policy position," an administration associate said on condition of anonymity. "Exactly as was mapped out during the transition."

"Her knowledge of how the interagency works is unrivalled and she has a deep understanding of the Palestinian economy and the obstacles (political and otherwise) to its development," a State Department official said on condition of anonymity. "We're all looking forward to her arrival. The NSC will miss her I'm sure."

(Since the move has not been publicly announced, neither NSC nor State Department officials were willing to speak on the record about it.)

From 1997-2001, when Rudman was deputy national security advisor and NSC chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, she was closely involved in the Middle East peace process as well as the budget processes. From 1993-1997, she served as the chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs committee under Lee Hamilton. As such, she worked with and hired some of the former Hamilton aides who have since risen to prominence in Obama's foreign-policy team, including McDonough, NSC senior director for the Middle East and North Africa Dan Shapiro and NSC senior director for Latin America Dan Restrepo. During the George W. Bush years, Rudman was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Rudman declined to comment. But associates say she was attracted to joining Mitchell's team in part because she thought he would be a great teacher, given his experience as a negotiator of the Irish peace accords and his understanding as a former senator of the importance of bringing the Hill along as well as of the broader domestic politics of foreign peace processes. Described as a straightforward (if occasionally brusque) pragmatist, Rudman is "all about dealing with the facts on the ground" as they are.

Compared with other Obama envoys, Mitchell has a relatively small team that includes Hof and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs David Hale, a former ambassador to Jordan who is expected to head out to be based in Jerusalem full time for Mitchell at the end of the summer. Mitchell has also asked Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who for the past three years has been trying to bolster the capacities of the Palestinian security forces as a U.S. security advisor in Jerusalem, to stay on for two more years. Rudman will work primarily out of Washington, but also travel frequently to the region.

In a 2007 interview with Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Rudman described the ingredients necessary for making the efforts of a Middle East peace envoy more than a fruitless exercise. Past envoys employed by the Bush and Clinton administrations, she said, "cannot be compared with someone at the level of a former head of state, granted necessary scope, authority, and autonomy to work with the parties in a sustained and consistent manner and on a full time basis... What is required now for the Middle East is someone of this stature, with a mandate that extends more broadly to cover the entire region, not only the Arab-Israeli conflict, who can roll up his or her sleeves, understands the politics, policies, and processes of all the players on the ground and in the international community, can bring the weight of the United States to the table when and as needed, and has the wisdom and perspective to know how to manage these various elements. That envoy cannot be used a substitute for smart and sustained policy by the United States, and sound national security processes to develop it."

Associates say Rudman believes that Mitchell has the necessary stature and has been empowered with those broad authorities, which have been matched as well by the Obama White House's sustained and high-level commitment to the peace process.

Such commitment from Washington aside, veteran U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller says he remains pessimistic the efforts can succeed. "Whether or not they can really get from A to B -- that is the real problem here," Miller told Foreign Policy. "Their commitment, rhetoric, change of tone, [and] the Mitchell appointment, are all fine and [are] what they need to be perceived to be taken seriously. The hard question is: What do you do, how to set up negotiations, let alone bridge gaps on the issues of borders, security, and refugees."

President Barack Obama meets with Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, at the White House situation room this afternoon. Later, Obama will meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice President Joseph Biden.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton briefed the press herself yesterday, welcoming the news that Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi had been released from prison in Iran. Clinton also introduced the State Department's new spokesman, Ian Kelly, and thanked Robert Wood for serving as spokesman during the transition. Wood will stay on as the deputy spokesman. (Kelly's nominated boss P.J. Crowley is slated to have his confirmation hearing tomorrow.)

Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke testifies on U.S. strategy toward Pakistan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, at 10:15am, Senate Dirksen-419.

At a business meeting preceding Holbrooke's testimony, the SFRC will discuss the confirmation of two candidates whose nominations were placed on hold last week by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): the Honorable Harold H. Koh, who has been nominated to be the State Department legal advisor, and Susan Burk, to serve as the special representative of the president for nuclear nonproliferation.

Tomorrow, the SFRC holds confirmation hearings for P.J. Crowley to serve as assistant secretary of state for public affairs, and Daniel Benjamin to serve as coordinator for counterterrorism, with the rank of ambassador at large.

On Thursday, it holds confirmation hearings for Jeffrey Feltman to become assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs (he's been serving as the acting), and for U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake to serve as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, with Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) chairing the hearing.

UPDATE: At (Tuesday) morning's business meeting, the SFRC voted out the confirmations of Koh and Burk to proceed to the full Senate.

"The nomination of Harold H. Koh to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State was ordered reported by a roll call vote of 12-5," a committee notice said. "The nomination of Susan Burk to be Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Non-proliferation was ordered reported by a roll call vote of 17-0."

The White House has announced the dates of the upcoming visits of the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit May 18, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will visit May 26, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit on May 28, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. 

"The president looks forward to welcoming key partners in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East to the White House later this month," Gibbs said. "With each of them, the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships, as well as the steps all parties should take to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians and between Israel and the Arab states."

At a press briefing this afternoon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was replacing the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David McKiernan.  

McKiernan will be succeeded by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who previously headed the Defense Department's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). 

"I made these decisions only after careful consideration of a great number of factors, including the advice of [Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Michael] Mullen and [Centcom commander Gen. David] Petraeus," Gates said. "In the end, I believe my decisions are in the best interest of our national security and the success of our mission in Afghanistan."   

Sources said that McChrystal, who spent time in Iraq although JSOC is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is close with Genereal Petraeus. 

"The Special Operations Forces guys are more likely institutionally to get that they are working with the population, that killing folks is not the whole ball game," one government South Asia hand said on condition of anonymity. "They have door kickers but also are seen as anthropologists with guns."  

CSIS's Karin von Hippel said she expects the McChrystal-Petraeus relationship to be critical. She also noted that Petraeus seems to be replicating in Afghanistan parts of the Iraq model he oversaw as the top four-star commander in Iraq, with two three-star generals - including then Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, reporting to him. 

Gates also announced that he was appointing his senior military advisor Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez to be the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  

Gates traveled to Afghanistan last week. Notable in retrospect is that an American Foreign Press Service report on Gates's two-day visit never mentions McKiernan once.

UPDATE: A senior Defense Department official who asked to speak on background said the decision to replace McKiernan preceded the U.S. air strikes last week that killed Afghan civilians:

It had nothing to do with that. Gates went over there to deliver this announcement to McKiernan last week. It had already been long decided. McKiernan himself knew two weeks ago when chairman [Mullen] gave him the heads up that Gates was going in this direction. The bottom line is that Gates has been thinking about this since the transition. We have a new policy, new stratetgy, new mission, new ambassador and it's time for new military leadership as well. It's not about anything McKiernan did or didn't do.  It was the desire of the secretary to have new leadership in there to carry out the new policy. The US is putting 20,000 forces in there and the Secretary believes they deserve the very best leadership.

McChrystal and Rodriguez are universally regarded in this building as two of the premiere counterinsurgency commanders in the army. Both have Afghanistan experience. Both have been home for more than a year now and are both rested, ready and raring to go.

He further described McKiernan as more old school Army vs. McChrystal's and Rodriguez's being part of the counterinsurgency camp. But he said McKiernan has actually been quite forward-leaning in urging measures to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Another administration official who asked for anonymity said McKiernan had rejected the support of a three-start general being added to his command structure, along the lines of the Petraeus-Odierno model in Iraq. He said that McKiernan had made very few changes to a strategy that was recognized not to be working for several months. He thought the administration had blown the chance to explain more about what it saw as shortcomings to the leadership in announcing his being replaced today.

U.S. President Barack Obama will travel to Egypt next month to deliver a long-anticipated speech about America's relations with the Muslim world. Afterwards, he will visit Dresden, and the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany, which his great uncle helped liberate, before going to Normandy, France to participate in ceremonies commemorating the 65^th anniversary of D-Day.

Obama's choice to address the Muslim world from Egypt is not without complications. The most populous Arab country, one that historically has had a huge influence in the media and on public culture across the Middle East, Egypt is a close U.S. ally with a dismal human rights record run by an autocratic regime that jails dissidents, commits torture, and has a cold peace with an Israeli neighbor that is despised by many of its citizens. As such, it demonstrates the problem for an America that wants to promote democracy even while it is tied to friendly autocracies such as that of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Asked why Obama had chosen Egypt for the speech, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "Obviously it is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world, and I think will be a trip, an opportunity for the president to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world."

Regarding the country's poor human rights record, Gibbs said, "I think the issues of democracy and human rights are things that are on the president's mind, and we'll have a chance to discuss those in more depth on the trip."

"This is not about who the leaders might be of any certain country," Gibbs added. "This is about the way the president views this relationship, the way he thinks this country should view that relationship, and the shared and common progress that we can make to strengthen that relationship and fight extremists."

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of the Bush administration's goal to promote freedom in the Middle East at the American University in Cairo in June 2005. "For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East -- and we achieved neither," Rice said. "Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people." But Washington looked the other way during abuses in Egyptian parliamentary elections held in the fall a few months later, and its appetite for democracy in the Middle East noticeably waned when the Muslim Brotherhood, and later Hamas in the Palestinian territories, did well.

Obama's speech, scheduled for June 4 at an as-yet undecided location in Egypt comes three days before elections in Lebanon that armed Islamist faction Hezbollah might do well in, and a week before Iranian elections that some see as a portent for the prospects of success for international efforts to engage Iran. It also comes just a couple weeks after Mubarak, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will have come to Washington for talks on the Middle East peace process.

But all those immediate considerations may be missing the point, former State Department Middle East hand Jon Alterman said.

"I think this is a strategic speech and not a tactical speech that Obama has largely worked out in his head before these day to day considerations," Alterman, now the director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Cable.

"It feels to me the way he has talked about it, is that its analogue will be his speech on race in Philadelphia. ... I get the sense that this is not a speech for June, it's not a speech for the year, it's about our broader set of relationships which have become poisoned and which he seeks to help mend."

Alterman predicted that Obama would not lecture his audience. "Obama is a very interesting personality for them. On the nongovernmental level, the prospect of hated leaders being replaced by a young fresh face is a gripping story. On the governmental level, there will be an appreciation for the fact that when Obama speaks he seems to be convey respect."

But the freshness may fade. "The reality is that Barack Obama is not going to give the Arab world everything they want," Alterman said. "Freshness and hope will yield to the reality of an American policy whose interests are not fully aligned with the Arab world. But the fact that he seems to have some empathy to Islam, speaks in a way that conveys respect, and seems to be extending a hand, creates not only curiosity but excitement about what a different relationship with the U.S. might look like."

When he spoke in Turkey last month, Obama signaled the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world, under his administration, would not be based on fighting terrorism alone. "America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaeda," Obama said. "We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, bridge misunderstanding, and seek common ground. ... And we will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith ... The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them."

The Europe portion of Obama's itinerary, with planned visits to the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald, the German city of Dresden which was destroyed in Allied bombing in World War II, and the D-Day battlefield of Normandy, is being called by some as Obama's war tour.

"A great-uncle of Obama's, Charlie Payne, helped liberate a sub-camp at Buchenwald in April 1945 as a member of the 89th Infantry Division," the Associated Press reported. "Gibbs said he did not know whether Payne would accompany Obama to Germany."

The Senate confirmed by unanimous consent this afternoon three senior Defense Department nominees, the Senate Armed Services Committee reports:

• Elizabeth L. King to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs;
  
• Wallace C. Gregson to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs;
  
• Michael Nacht to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs;

As the new A/S of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs, Nacht takes on a reconfigured post in the Defense Department policy shop. His portfolio includes countering weapons of mass destruction proliferation, missile defense policy, cyber security and space policy.  A dean and professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Nacht previously served as a Clinton-era official at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

King, the new A/S of Defense for Legislative Affairs, previously served as a long-time defense staffer for Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).   

Ltn. Gen. Chip Gregson (ret.), the newly confirmed A/S for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, previously served as the Commander of U.S. Marine forces in the Pacific. Earlier in his career, Gregson served as the director of Asia and Pacific Affairs in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Barack Obama's commitment to diplomacy in the Middle East has been giving many in Israel heart palpitations since before the U.S. presidential election. Specifically, his declared intention to engage Iran has stoked Israeli fears that Tehran will take advantage of the breathing space to advance its nuclear program. In addition, says University of Maryland nukes expert Avner Cohen, Israel has long worried that in negotiations, Iran might try to link any meaningful nuclear concessions it might make to opening up Israel's own presumed nuclear weapons program to international scrutiny. 

But Israel's anxieties have now gone into overdrive after a recent article in the Washington Times highlighting comments made by the newly confirmed assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance, Rose Gottemoeller (above left), at a conference in New York on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Gottemoeller said, as cited by Reuters.

"She declined to say, however, whether the Obama administration would press Israel to join the treaty," the Washington Times noted, after declaring in its lead paragraph that Gottemoeller's comments indicated the Obama administration was prepared to "derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny."

U.S. officials and U.S. and Israeli nuclear experts dispute that interpretation.

Asked whether Gottemoeller's comments indicate a shift in America's position, a State Department spokesman said such an interpretation is "overblown," adding, "We have always said that we wanted NPT to be universal -- implicitly including Israel" as well as other countries that have not signed the NPT, including India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Gottemoeller "is saying a lot of things that sound more dramatic than they are," he added.

Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, and a former colleague of Gottemoeller's at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, echoed the sentiment. "This story is overblown," he told The Cable. "There is no change in the U.S. position. The U.S. has always supported universal adherence to the treaty. Rose just said it up front rather then burying it."

The University of Maryland's Cohen, an expert on Israel's nuclear program, said Gottemoeller's comments were nuanced, and not signals of an operational shift in Washington's position.

Gottemoeller's comment was "amplified much beyond its real worth, to make it an example of, or evidence that, the Obama administration had already started to depart from its traditional backing of Israel." Cohen told The Cable, "I do not believe that is the case, surely not yet."

The crux of her statement, that the United States supports the future goal of universal adoption of the NPT, is "essentially consistent with U.S. policy under Democratic administrations and support for NPT" and arms control treaties, Cohen added. Her comments "were unrelated to the fact that operationally, the U.S. would continue to shield Israel's nuclear program from international pressure." (Gottemoeller did not immediately respond to a query.)

So then what accounts for the story, which a source told The Cable the newspaper had before Gottemoeller delivered her remarks? Who would want to give Israel the impression that the Obama administration was prepared to toss the country's so-far-undeclared nuclear program on the table as a bargaining chip?

The answer might have more to do with American domestic politics than with U.S.-Israeli relations. The story just happened to drop in the midst of the large annual AIPAC policy conference earlier this week, which brought some 6,500 pro Israel supporters to Washington. At the conference, conservative critics of the Obama administration, like Newt Gingrich, attacked the president as no friend of Israel, while indicating his own support -- if he were president -- to order strikes on Iran and North Korea.  

(Of course, it could be a coincidence that the UN NPT meeting at which Gottermoeller spoke happened to fall during the AIPAC conference. Whatever the case, the spin of the story as it was presented served to fuel Israeli anxiety, at a time that Israeli wariness about the Obama administration's intentions to engage Iran and push for a Middle East peace settlement is already heightened.)

When added to the NPT issue, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden's call at the AIPAC conference for Israel to stop its settlement expansion and Israeli President Shimon Peres's subdued demeanor upon leaving a meeting with Obama at the White House Tuesday, "causes severe nervousness here," an Israeli diplomat told The Cable Wednesday. "And, further, builds a drama over Netanyahu's trip to D.C. in two weeks."

Photo: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

When Shimon Peres met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, the White House had to walk a fine line: Honor the president of a close U.S. ally, but don't make overmuch of the visit of a figurehead who has publicly supported the Middle East peace process and was granted a meeting at the White House before Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has opposed it.  (Netanyahu is being invited to the White House later this month, along with the presidents of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority).

So, while the White House made no secret of the Peres-Obama meeting, there was no press conference featuring the two leaders in the Oval Office; just a chance to catch photos and a few comments from Peres as he departed the White House meeting and a one-paragraph readout of their visit on WhiteHouse.gov.

National security advisor James Jones, NSC senior director for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and White House political advisor David Axelrod were in the room with Peres and Obama. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Peres earlier Tuesday at his hotel.)

At first glance, it's a team that makes sense to be included in a meeting that straddles policy and politics. Jones, as Obama's national security advisor, and Shapiro, as the NSC official on the Middle East, convey the national security dimensions of the relationship. Emanuel and Axelrod are two high-level Jewish members of Obama's administration; they have been increasingly enlisted in recent weeks to build support within the Jewish-American community for a two-state solution in the face of resistance from the new Netanyahu government.

The presence of Emanuel and Axelrod in the room told the Israelis something important, Israel watchers suggested. "This is a significant decision," said Steve Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, which conducts track-two diplomacy between Israel and the Arab world. "The Israelis have tried to intimidate Rahm to say, in effect, ‘Don't forget you are a Jew [whose parents were born in] Israel.'" His presence, Cohen said, "told the Israelis in the most clear possible way that ‘I serve the president of the United States and there is no distance between my role with regard to this search for peace in the Middle East and that of the president.'"

Axelrod's presence is also significant, Cohen said. "Axelrod also has been the most significant person relating to the Jews and everybody else during Obama's election campaign. Axelrod has had a very good relationship with the Jewish community of Chicago."

He added, "I think this was another sign that the old game is over," referring to what he described as past Israeli attempts to "get around the strategic assessment of the U.S. president by putting pressure on him from allies within the United States." Cohen sees signs that efforts to "slow down the president by going to Congress ... which has been so often used to slow down the peace process" will thus be discouraged or will not succeed.

An Israeli diplomat said that there was no offense taken by the Netanyahu government that Peres got the first meeting with Obama. "Quite the contrary. Peres is there to soften the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, to provide an elder statesman's view of how things ‘will eventually work out.'" Peres and Netanyahu are fully coordinated, another observer said.

But in other ways, too, sources tell The Cable, the lineup had some notable inclusions and omissions that says something larger about how the Obama administration's foreign policy is being made and communicated by the White House. For instance, Clinton was not at the meeting, though as noted earlier she met with Peres separately at his hotel.

"The White House won't let her on TV on the Sunday morning talk shows," a plugged-in Washington Middle East hand observed."Who is talking about foreign policy on those shows? Axelrod. Who is showing up at the meeting with Obama-Peres? Axelrod. They are controlling the message."

"They've never even had her even on Charlie Rose," he added. "You have not really seen the secretary of state in the U.S. media; you've seen her in the international media. Who is their main messenger on foreign policy?"

(An aide confirmed Clinton hadn't been on the Sunday talk shows since the campaign.)

The plugged in Washington Middle East observer noted that Clinton was not sent by the administration to address the AIPAC conference, either. Instead, Vice President Joseph Biden was dispatched, where he called for Israel to stop its settlement expansion.

"Biden is the person who is perceived as a very experienced foreign-policy hand who has a very solid relationship with Israel, but that relationship is solidly based on American strategic analysis," Cohen said. "And not affected so much by the Clinton experience of being a [former] New York senator."

"The combination and timing of Biden at AIPAC, Peres' ‘What, me worry?' face after meeting Obama and the nuclear non proliferation treaty issue causes severe nervousness here," the Israeli diplomat said Wednesday. "And further builds a drama over Netanyahu's" upcoming trip to Washington.

Observers looking for other signs that Obama's foreign policy is emanating and being controlled by the White House more than the State Department will find them. When U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke had to wrap up his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Tuesday a bit early, he apologized, saying the White House had only asked him to come by at the last minute. Later, Holbrooke mentioned that he could be found through a personal aide or via the NSC (though he maintains an office on Foggy Bottom's first floor next to that of special advisor on the Gulf and Southwest Asia Dennis Ross, few people in the State Department's normal bureaucracy seem apprised of his schedule).

And this past week, when Ross was dispatched to the Persian Gulf states and Egypt to reassure them on U.S. plans for outreach to Iran, it was the NSC's senior director on Iran and the Persian Gulf, Puneet Talwar, considered to have a more moderate take on U.S. policy to Iran, as well as the Centcom deputy commander, who accompanied him. (Or perhaps shadowed him, others might see it.)

The NSC's Shapiro is currently accompanying Jeffrey Feltman, the State Department's acting (and nominated) assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, on their second trip to Damascus, Syria. Sources say that Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, was mystified by the trip to Damascus being scheduled now, before the June 7 Lebanese elections, and wondered how and where the decision was made. Neither Feltman nor Shapiro responded to a query on the Damascus trip. Asked about the trip Wednesday, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said he had no more details. "We will engage in dialogue when and where we feel it's appropriate," Wood said. "But we think it's time for both countries" -- Syria and Iran -- to "become part of the solution."

UPDATE: White House and State Department officials wrote to strongly dispute that Clinton was being kept off the Sunday news talk shows. A White House official said Clinton is an "absolutely critical voice" in the effort to develop and communicate the administration's foreign policy. He noted that Secretary Clinton spoke to the entire press corps about foreign policy in the briefing room yesterday. A State Department official said the White House asked Clinton to go out two Sundays ago, but she couldn't because she was in Iraq. He further said that television networks are being given unprecedented access to the Secretary on her trips, extra seats, and interviews.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza