Fresh off his war of words with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russia's once-and-future President Vladimir Putin is calling out another senior U.S. politician: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Unlike Clinton, who doesn't actually want to be trading insults with Putin in the press, McCain relishes these types of confrontations. In fact, McCain might have even started it when he tweeted on Dec. 6, "Dear Vlad, The ArabSpring is coming to a neighborhood near you."

That was a reference to the anti-Putin rallies in Moscow to protest Russia's parliamentary elections, which Clinton called "not free and fair."

On Thursday, Putin insulted McCain during a TV call-in show.

"He has the blood of peaceful civilians on his hands, and he can't live without the kind of disgusting, repulsive scenes like the killing of Qaddafi," Putin said.

Putin then took his insults one step further, accusing McCain of losing his marbles when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

"Mr. McCain was captured and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years," said Putin. "Anyone [in his place] would go nuts."

McCain responded Thursday morning on Twitter, writing, "Dear Vlad, is it something I said?"

Putin didn't even address McCain's comments at the Foreign Policy Initiative Forum on Tuesday in Washington, when he accused the entire Russian government of corruption.

"I think this a corrupt system -- an oligarchy.... This is a kleptocracy.  It's certainly not a representative government," McCain told the forum.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has delayed consideration of Michael McFaul to become the next U.S. ambassador to Russia due to objections by U.S. senators that aren't related to his personal qualifications for the position.

Two Senate sources confirmed to The Cable that the committee decided Monday not to consider the nomination of McFaul, the current National Security Council senior director for Russia, at today's committee business meeting as had been planned. In fact, early Tuesday afternoon  the entire meeting was cancelled due to the McFaul objection as well as separate objections on the nominations of Roberta Jacobson to become assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Mari Carmen Aponte as ambassador to El Salvador. A planned resolution giving the sense of the Senate on Libya also faced criticism, our two Senate sources said.

"Today's business meeting has been postponed due to last-minute requests to holdover several of the agenda items," SFRC spokeswoman Jennifer Berlin told The Cable.

For McFaul, two staffers have confirmed that the objection is coming from Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). Corker isn't objecting to McFaul's personal qualifications for the position, but is using the nomination to press for administration assurances that the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee will be fully funded for fiscal year 2012. Corker also wants assurances over funding for nuclear warhead life-extension programs, which were part of the deal the administration struck with Congress during the debate over the New START nuclear reductions agreement with Russia.

Other GOP senators want to use the McFaul nomination to press the administration on a host of issues, including the current U.S.-Russia talks over missile defense cooperation, Russia's poor record on human rights, its continued occupation of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and a perceived lack of Russian cooperation on key international issues, such as confronting the Iranian nuclear threat.

"Objections have been raised by enough Republicans to warrant holding [McFaul] over until the next business meeting. Likely, strong concerns over administration negotiations with Moscow over missile defense play a large role in taking him off the business meeting agenda," one Senate Republican committee staffer said. "It may be the case Mr. McFaul is not confirmed, given the weight of these concerns."

Another staffer for a committee member said today that further objections to McFaul's nomination would probably come during floor consideration, because they would be raised by Republicans not on the committee. The objections have little to do with McFaul himself, who is generally liked and well-respected by the GOP, in part due to his decades of activism on democracy and human rights.

"He's about as good of a nominee as Republicans can expect from this administration, but there is a huge gap between the administration and the GOP about how the ‘reset' with Russia is going," said this staffer. "Republicans will use his nomination to air their concerns about a range of issues. That's just how it is."

The committee will likely have only one more business meeting this year, and it is unclear whether the administration will get McFaul a hearing on the next agenda.

Meanwhile, the State Department, aware of the potential problems with the McFaul nomination, sent around a fact sheet yesterday to Senate offices, which was obtained by The Cable, seeking to assuage senators' concerns about U.S.-Russia missile defense cooperation discussions. One GOP Senate aide reacted to the fact sheet by telling The Cable, "If the administration thinks this is what constitutes giving Congress access to information about the negotiations, they are sorely mistaken."

Some GOP offices also wanted Kerry to add a bill to penalize Russia for its treatment of human rights lawyers and activists to today's business meeting agenda. The legislation, called the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011, is named after the anti-corruption lawyer who was tortured and died in a Russian prison in 2009. The bill targets his captors, as well as any other Russian officials "responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of human rights."

Republicans want passage of the Magnitsky bill to be the cost of repealing the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which currently prevents Russia from getting Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status. Without PNTR, U.S. businesses will be disadvantaged when Russia joins the WTO later this year. The administration is avoiding linking Magnitsky to this trade status, and is proposing a fund to support a new democracy and human rights foundation in Russia instead. Republicans are cool on that idea.

Meanwhile, we've confirmed that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is objecting to the Jacobson nomination, and we're told that Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is holding up the Aponte nomination.

The new Libyan government won't hand over the man convicted for planning the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, but the Justice Department plans to keep hunting down the perpetrators, with or without him.

Senior lawmakers and GOP presidential candidates said last week that the top priority of the new Libyan government should be the rearrest and extradition of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was sentenced in Scotland for the bombing, but then released in 2009 on compassionate grounds because he was supposedly dying of cancer.

CNN's Nic Robertson actually found Megrahi and visited him in his Tripoli home yesterday, where he appeared to be comatose and near death. But Mohammed al-Alagi, the justice minister in Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), said yesterday that the senators' request had "no meaning" and that the NTC had no intention of extraditing Megrahi to the United States or anywhere else.

"We will not hand over any Libyan citizen. It was Qaddafi who handed over Libyan citizens," Alagi said. He also criticized Qaddafi for handing over Megrahi to the Scots in the first place.

Pressed on the issue at today's briefing, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland would only say that the Obama administration was in touch with the NTC on the issue and that White House officials didn't think the NTC had made any final decisions on what to do about Megrahi.

"We need to let them get their feet under themselves as a governing authority, and then they have agreed that they will look at this … and I don't think we're there yet," she said, adding that the Justice Department had the lead on the issue.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd told The Cable that even if Megrahi is not rearrested or if he dies, the DOJ will continue to hunt down the remaining culprits of the attack.

"We remain firmly committed to bringing to justice everyone who may have been involved in the Pan Am 103 bombing," he said. "The Justice Department investigation into the Pan Am 103 bombing that was initiated on December 21, 1988, remains open and active."

He declined to comment on what exactly DOJ is doing in the Lockerbie investigation, nor did he give any reaction to the NTC's comments on the issue.

There's no consensus on what to do with Megrahi, even among those in Washington calling for his rearrest. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) wants him brought to the United States. Mitt Romney suggested that he be brought to the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In an interview with The Cable, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he thinks Megrahi should be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. "There were a lot of people besides Americans who were killed in that bombing," he said.

"I think this guy should see justice, but I also understand that the Libyans want to handle it themselves," McCain said. "Let's see how they handle it. As long as we can ensure justice was done, I think the families of the victims would be OK with that."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) doesn't believe that Megrahi is near death, and he is angry at the NTC for refusing to hand him over.

"This wouldn't be the first time that Libyan officials claimed al-Megrahi was on his deathbed. We're going to need a lot more verification than the word of local Libyan officials," Schumer said. "There is no justifiable basis for the rebels' decision to shield this convicted terrorist."

South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint repeated today his claim that "millions of Americans" are "outraged" that Congress would dare work on major legislation, namely New START, this close to Christmas. He previously called it "sacrilegious."

"Don't tell me about Christmas. I understand Christmas," Vice President Joe Biden responded in a Dec. 16 interview. "There's 10 days between now and Christmas. I hope I don't get in the way of your Christmas shopping, but this is the nation's business. National security's at stake. Act."

Less than a week later, DeMint is back at it again. "It's clear with this treaty that [the administration is] trying to cram something down the throats of the American people under the cover of Christmas," DeMint said in a press conference on Tuesday. "They're not looking at politics right now, they're celebrating their holy Christmas holiday, and the fact that we're doing this under the cover of Christmas...is something to be outraged about."

Here at the Capitol building, there's some confusion about exactly how long before Dec. 25 Congress should stop working on major bills (so as not to offend the "millions" of outraged Christians DeMint is standing up for), and why only Christian holidays should be protected from major legislation.

In an exclusive interview with The Cable, DeMint explained what commentators have coined his drive to combat the "war on Christmas vacation." Here's the transcript:

JR: Senator DeMint, exactly how long before Christmas Day is the period during which the American people don't want Congress to work on major legislation, in your view?

JD: It has nothing to do with us not being willing to work. For the [continuing resolution] I'm willing to work right through New Year's. It's just, trying to do [New START] under the cover of people being distracted. We've worked with a lot of people on the outside and around the country who feel this is a bad way to do a bad treaty. People are distracted.

JR: How long are people distracted before Christmas? Is it the entire month of December, or what?

JD: The whole lame duck [session] to me is an illegitimate process and the intent to do whatever is the nation's business that has to be done, such as fund the government. But to pass major legislation during the lame duck is not the intent. People who are here, the voters have changed a lot of them. Doing it during Christmas is just one piece of it. The big issue is using the lame duck of unaccountable senators to ram through a major arms control treaty. That's the issue.

JR: Why invoke only the Christian holidays? Congress works on major legislation during Jewish holidays, Muslim holidays. You never said anything about that, right? Aren't Jews distracted during Hannukah?

JD: Sure, we normally take off for Jewish holidays. It's more of the distraction of the end of the year. I'm not trying to make it just an issue of Christmas. But it is obvious that Americans do not expect their unelected officials to come in and make major decisions when we're not supposed to be here and they're not paying attention.

Jim Jones was preparing to leave his job as national security advisor in early 2011, according to Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars. Ironically, controversy erupting from that very same book may have contributed to Jones speeding up that schedule by several months; President Obama will announce his departure today, and that his replacement will be his deputy, Tom Donilon.

Immediate reaction within the administration to Jones's resignation was consistent with the long-held view that Jones was never able to be effective as national security advisor because he was outside of Obama's inner circle and was intellectually and sometimes physically cut out of major foreign policy discussions.

"Jones always carried an ‘emeritus' air about him and appeared removed and distant from the day-to-day operations," one administration official told The Cable. "In six months, you will be hard pressed to find anyone in the administration who notices that Jones is no longer there."

In fact, Jones's distance from key White House staff was reported as early as May 2009. But the Woodward book, which included several salacious quotes that allegedly came from Jones, vividly described his tenure as one that was rocky from the start and only continued to deteriorate as he became more and more frustrated with all of the White House staff he was supposed to be working with.

Jones apparently didn't get along with most of the White House political advisors, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor David Axelrod, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and NSC staffers Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert. Woodward reported that Jones called them the "water bugs," the "Politburo," the "Mafia" and the "campaign set." Jones almost quit once when one of the "water bugs" denied him access to Obama during an overseas trip to Europe.

The book revealed that Jones confronted Emanuel for dealing with Donilon instead of him, telling him once, "I'm the national security advisor. When you come down there, come see me."

Jones chose Donilon as his deputy at the insistence of Emanuel, despite having no personal connection to him, and later came to regret the choice. Woodward reported that Jones also worked to oust Lippert, whom he accused of leaking information about him to the media.

According to Woodward, Jones was shocked to be selected for the NSA post in the first place because he had no prior relationship whatsoever with Obama. But the president saw Jones as someone who could help him navigate the military, and perhaps even provide a counterweight to the Pentagon leadership due to his experience as Marine Corps commandant and head of NATO.

But if Obama wanted Jones to help him deal with the military, that also didn't bear out. Woodward details several instances where Jones finds himself in open conflict with the military brass, led by Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen. In the administration's debates over increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, Jones often raised the prospect of sending far fewer troops than the 40,000 requested by Mullen and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, arguing that the military hadn't proven its need for so many new troops.

The last salvo against Jones from Woodward came during the author's Oct. 5 interview with Charlie Rose, where he said that Jones had failed in his fundamental duty to give frank advice to the president because he held back on his assessment that only 20,000 additional troops were needed in Afghanistan.

Woodward heaped praise on Donilon, saying that he ran at 100 miles per hour compared to Jones' 35 mph. But not all of the characters in his book agreed. Woodward quotes Defense Secretary Bob Gates as saying that Donilon would be a "disaster" as national security advisor.

According to all accounts, Donilon has been the machine running the NSC for some time, chairing the crucial deputies committee meetings and making the trains run on time throughout the NSC. But Donilon is not viewed as a strategic thinker along the lines of someone like former NSA Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"Donilon will represent continuity and I can't see any major shifts in policy stemming from the changeover," one administration source said.      

On one major issue, Jones and Donilon seemed to agree. Donilon is skeptical about the prospects for success in Afghanistan, for reasons similar to Jones's. Just after Obama announced the decision to add 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, Donilon said to the NSC's Gen. Doug Lute, "My god, what have we got this guy into?," according to Woodward.

The Senate is expected to take up the defense authorization bill next week, but top Republicans on the Senate Armed Services committee are promising to oppose the legislation due to language that it includes on gays in the military and the possible insertion of an amendment on immigration.

Every year, both parties agree to pass the defense bill, even while large parts of the rest of the legislative agenda go uncompleted. For that reason, it is often viewed by senators as a convenient vehicle for other legislation they want to move through Congress -- whether or not it is related to the military.

Last year, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI), to the chagrin of Republicans, successfully added language expanding protections from hate crimes. This year, Democrats are expected to attempt to add the "American Dream Act," a bill that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrant students, to the defense authorization bill.

Committee Republicans are not happy.

"This is an all-time low for me being in the Senate and that's saying something," committee member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told The Cable in an exclusive interview. "The one area that has been kept off limits from partisan politics has been the defense of our nation. To say that you're going to bring up a defense bill and put the Dream Act on it ... to me is very offensive."

"Obviously it's about politics," Graham continued. "You're trying to check a box with the Hispanic voters on the Dream Act ... this is using the defense bill in a partisan fashion that hasn't been done before."

Actually, the defense bill has often been the subject of partisan wrangling. What is unprecedented, however, is that the bill could come to the Senate floor without the support of the committee's top Republican, John McCain (R-AZ).

McCain adamantly opposes the bill because it contains language that could lead to the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which bans homosexuals from serving openly in the military.

"It authorizes the repeal of DADT before the study is completed," McCain told a gaggle of reporters in the Capitol Monday, referring to the Defense Department's ongoing analysis of the impacts of a policy change.

One sharp reporter pointed out to McCain that the actual language in the defense bill would only allow repeal after the study was finished, but McCain stuck to his story.

"It repeals the law, that's wrong. The service chiefs object to it and I object to it," he said emphatically.

He then lashed out at Levin for adding the hate crimes language to last year's bill.

"That established a terrible precedent, he was terribly wrong to do it, and I condemn him for it," said McCain.

The Cable caught up with Levin in the subway beneath the Capitol complex. He said he expected Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to file cloture on the defense bill this week, which would mean it would reach the floor early next week.

But Levin said that Democratic and Republican leaders were negotiating an agreement on how to handle the bill, including whether to allow a vote on the Dream Act as an amendment. He claimed that he didn't understand why McCain and Graham were so worked up.

"I'd love it to be on there, I'm in favor of the Dream Act. But that doesn't mean they can get an agreement to vote on it," Levin said. "If [Republicans] don't want an agreement, there won't be an agreement. Then we'll just have to try to do it after the elections."

Regarding McCain's remarks on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Levin said that was voted on in committee and McCain shouldn't oppose the bill just because he didn't like the outcome of one vote.

"They didn't like the outcome of some votes, I didn't like the outcome of other votes. Let's just get it to the floor and debate it," he said.

But Levin did admit that the complete destruction of the bipartisan comity that usually surrounds the crafting of the defense bill was regrettable.

"If anyone laments not having my ranking member support this bill because of one amendment which is highly relevant to this bill, I deeply lament it," he said. "I'm troubled by it, believe me."

There's a battle going on among the standard-bearers of the Tea Party over their foreign policy message. But at the rank-and-file level, Tea Partiers have no unified view on major foreign policy issues. They are all over the map.

Sarah Palin, who spoke at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally on the Mall Saturday, would like the Tea Party to endorse her quasi-neoconservative approach to national security policy. She advocates aggressive unilateralism, ever-rising defense budgets, unfailing support of Israel, and a skeptical eye toward China, Russia, and any other possible competitor to the United States.

Ron Paul, a founding leader of the Tea Party who has seen the movement slip away from him somewhat, wants the  movement's focus on thrift to extend to foreign policy, resulting in an almost isolationist approach that sets limits on the use of American power and its presence abroad.

In over a dozen interviews with self-identified Tea Party members at Saturday's rally, your humble Cable guy discovered that, when it comes to foreign policy, attendees rarely subscribed wholeheartedly to either Palin or Paul's world view. Despite claiming to share the same principles that informed their views, Tea Partiers often reached very different conclusions about pressing issues in U.S. foreign policy today.

Understandably, most Tea Party members at the rally viewed foreign policy through the prism of domestic problems such as the poor economy and the movement of jobs overseas. Almost all interviewees expressed support for U.S. troops abroad and a connection to Christianity they said informed their world view.

But that's where the similarities ended. Some attendees sounded like reliable neocons arguing for more troops abroad. Others sounded like antiwar liberals, lamenting the loss of life in any war for any reason. Still others sounded like inside the beltway realists, carefully considering the costs and benefits of a given policy option based on American national security interests.

For example, The Cable interviewed Danny Koss, a former Marine from Grove City, PA, who was measured when it came to talking about the war in Afghanistan.

"If we are going to stay, I suggest we really win," he said. "I'm not convinced that some of our leadership is ready for that. I know our generals are."

Koss, sounding like a realist, said that he saw China as a near-term economic threat but not a near-term military threat. A strike against Iran was not a good option, he argued, although he said it was wise of President Barack Obama to publicly state that all options are on the table.

When it came to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, however, Koss seamlessly switched to a religious frame.

"You've got to go back and read the Bible, see who had it first. If you believe the Bible and who God gave it to, the rest is history," he said.

Later, we ran into Cecilia Goodow from Hartford, NY, who said that her foreign policy views were determined exclusively by her faith. This led her to regret the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq.

"It sounded so reasonable at the time. But Holy Father John Paul II was against the war; he said it would just be an awful thing and many people would be killed," she said. "I always supported the troops, but we know history and we know that wars are sometimes perpetrated by evil people for evil reasons that the average person doesn't even know about or understand, so I can't wait for it all to stop."

Goodow said she wants Obama to stand up for America more and fight the forces of evil, which include Iran, but she doesn't support military intervention, even in Afghanistan.

"Sometimes that's cloudy -- why are we there? Barack Obama ran on the promise that he was going to bring everybody home. That's what we all sat around the table talking about. Maybe if there's a new presidential policy maybe we can have peace again, maybe we can bring our kids home," she said. "War begets more war."

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, we found Larry Maxwell of Patterson, NY. Dressed in full Revolutionary War regalia and holding a huge American flag, he was as much historian as activist, engaging passersby in debates about America's past.

While he supported the decision to go war in Iraq and largely believes claims that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Maxwell lamented the cost of the Iraq war and the danger of bolstering Iranian influence in the region.

But while Maxwell was concerned about the tensions surrounding Iran and its nuclear program, he didn't believe that a military strike is the best option.

"Are we the world's police? We're having a lot of trouble here and a lot of problems here. I'm not sure where our role comes over there," he said. "The United Nations would be the place for that ... but nobody listens to them."

Maxwell, like Koss, also referenced the Bible to support Israel's right to the land it now occupies. "The Bible says in the last days, that the Middle East, that's going to be the center of activity," he said.  "If you go back to the Bible, it says there's going to be an army of 200 million men coming out of the East to the Middle East, as part of that whole Armageddon and ‘end of days' thing."

But not all Tea Partiers reflexively took Israel's side. Brandon Malator from Washington, DC, who dressed in U.S. Army fatigues and donned a cowboy hat with a Lipton tea bag dangling from the brim, was a stalwart supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not of Israel.

"[We should] stay longer. We've never left any other country and we shouldn't leave Iraq," he said, adding that the U.S. is engaged in a 100-year-war that would include a coming war with Iran and eventually a war with China, which he called "World War III." He praised Obama for sending more troops to Afghanistan. "I think we're doing what we need to do as Americans. I think if the rest of the world doesn't like it, then that's tough luck."

But when it came to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Malatore's was downright dovish.  "I hope that Israel and Palestine can come to an agreement, share the land, and do whatever they need to do to stop fighting all the time. I hope that war ends; that's been going on too long."

Once and future presidential candidate Mitt Romney is sending around a new fundraising letter, asking for money so that he can fight President Obama's new nuclear-arms reductions treaty with Russia.

"This is a critical midterm election year, and we need to ensure that we elect leaders who understand that a strong America is the best hope for freedom and peace in the world, and who will put our national security interests first," Romney wrote in mass email asking for contributions to his Free and Strong America PAC.

"WILL YOU STAND WITH ME TODAY IN THIS EFFORT BY MAKING A CONTRIBUTION TO MY  PAC OF $35, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, $2,500 OR EVEN THE MAXIMUM  $5,000?"

Romney declared his opposition to the new START treaty in a much-criticized Washington Post op-ed entitled "Obama's Worst Foreign Policy Mistake." His fundraising drive echoes that line and also attacks Obama's foreign policy writ large.

"Unfortunately, this is not the first time that President Obama's foreign policy missteps have damaged our national security interests. His decision to abandon our missile defense system in Central Europe undercut key allies like Poland and the Czech Republic. And his policy of ‘engagement' with rogue nations has been met with North Korean nuclear tests, missile  launches and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, while Iran has  accelerated its nuclear program, funded terrorists and armed Hezbollah with  long-range missiles," Romney wrote.

On START, Romney is clear in what he wants to happen. "Whatever the reason for the treaty's failings, it must not be ratified: The security of the United States is at stake," he said.

That position is shared by his ideological cohorts at the Heritage Foundation, who are starting a nationwide anti-ratification grassroots effort via their new 501c4 group, Heritage Action for America. Romney has been working with this group.

But the Heritage Foundation's main analyst on such matters, Baker Spring, didn't write the Romney op-ed, he tells The Cable. He does think the article signals a theme that many Republicans will now use to oppose not only START, but other arms-control initiatives the Obama team has plans to push forward.

"There's now, in play, two fundamentally different views regarding arms controls in the post-Cold War world," Spring said. "The question, simply and straight forwardly, is: Is the U.S. going to fashion an arms control policy based on at least the possibility if not the likelihood of a proliferated environment? Or is it going to go back to essentially the tried and true verities of Cold War-style, retaliation-based deterrence as a defining mechanism for what arms controls should obtain, as a fundamental goal?"

Spring acknowledges that his and Romney's views differ from those of most leading Senate Republicans, including Jon Kyl, R-AZ, and John McCain, R-AZ, two key GOP voices on START. Both Kyl and McCain are keeping their powder dry, bargaining for concessions on missile defense and nuclear modernization before they will say which way they intend to vote.

According to The Hill, Kyl and Vice President Joseph Biden are in negotiations over the treaty now.

Spring says that the basic positions of the two camps of Republicans are the same, but that senators are holding their fire as part of their strategy to get the most concessions possible.

"When you look at the Kyls and McCains of the world, I don't think there's at this point in time much difference between their position and where [South Carolina Sen. Jim] DeMint and Romney will be. I think that's a simple matter of legislative tactics," said Spring.

Senate sources said that various senators are preparing two types of measures that could impact the START debate, whenever it does get to the Senate floor. One type, an amendment to the resolution ratifying the treaty, would, if passed, force the document to go back to the Russians for another round of negotiations. That could be a ratification killer in a practical sense, by overcomplicating the process until it loses steam.

Another, less controversial way to express concerns would be a statement of reservation that a senator could try to tack on to the treaty. This could allow the GOP to air its complaints while still allowing ratification to go forward.

What's clear is that the Obama administration is working the GOP caucus hard to try to firm up the eight to 10 votes they will need to reach the 67-vote threshold. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, Tuesday and Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to talk with GOP senators about START as well.

Leading former senators from both parties are also joining the debate to make the case for ratification. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former GOP Senator Chuck Hagel are each headlining a pro-START think tank event this month.

The State Department is issuing cards for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border that may be vulnerable to counterfeiting, according to a new report.

In 2008, the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs took over from the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service the job of producing and issuing passport cards, which can be used by Americans as cheaper alternative to passports, and Border Crossing Cards, which are used by Mexican nationals who cross the border on a regular basis. However, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday that "State does not fully understand the security and durability of the [U.S. passport] card." Though State "generally" is following accepted standards and procedures for designing the passport cards, it didn't test the final version of the cards -- leaving opportunities for criminals to forge their own.

Making the problem worse, when State began planning to produce a second-generation Border Crossing Card, the department issued the work to the same company that produced the flawed passport cards.

"Because the second generation BCC was added to the passport contract, it did not undergo any formal security testing and evaluation activities and no security or durability testing was done on the second-generation passport card," the GAO said.

The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Customs and Border Protection bureau intercepted more than 13,000 fraudulent Border Crossing Cards in 2009 alone. Last July, only one month after the use of the Border Crossing Cards became mandatory, the DHS's Forensic Document Laboratory alerted U.S. Border Patrol officers that counterfeits had begun appearing at U.S. ports of entry and issued an alert explaining how to detect forgeries.

"The 9-11 Commission's final report makes clear that ‘for terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons,'" six congressmen wrote to the GAO in December 2008, in requesting the investigation. "We are concerned that the physical and electronic security of the U.S. Passport Card and the new Mexican Border Crossing Card may be inadequate."

State received the responsibility for manufacturing these cards as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which was supposed to tighten up the U.S. southern border as part of the reforms spelled out in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004.

The Forensic Document Laboratory, ,which specializes in travel-document fraud, told the GAO that State should use a different material to make the card, a higher standard of engraving, and put more visible security features on the front of the cards.

State responded that it has to balance the cost of security features with the benefit and therefore didn't think the bulk of the laboratory's recommendations were worth the expense.

Why didn't State even test the final version of the passport card, as the laboratory recommended?

"Because it was in the final stages of procurement when the design was finalized and it wanted to meet schedule," the GAO said. State is working on the new version of the passport card now.

During President Obama's trip to Canada this weekend for the G-8 and G-20 meetings on global economic reform, the real action will be taking place in his meetings with several top Asian leaders on the sidelines of the events.

"We also want to use these meetings as an opportunity to underscore America's commitment to leadership and increased engagement in Asia," said a senior administration official about the trip. "We see this is an opportunity to continue our efforts to renew our leadership in Asia."

Five out of the six precious bilateral meetings Obama will grant over the weekend will go to leaders from East Asian countries. After the first meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron in Toronto, his one-on-ones will be with President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, and the new Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan.

"That is, I think, an eloquent demonstration of the importance that the president attaches to Asia, the importance of Asia to our political security and economic interest," another senior administration official said.

For the Korea bilat, the sinking of the Cheonan will be at the top of the agenda. The U.N. debate over how to reprimand North Korea for sinking the ship is going on now and strategies for finishing that effort need to be discussed.

With the Chinese president, Obama will likely follow up on the slight change China made to its currency policy this week. Congress isn't quite yet satisfied with the move and is still pressing legislation, so Obama needs to find out whether Hu intends to go further.

In a blistering New York Times column Friday, Princeton University economist Paul Krugman argued that China's currency adjustment was "basically a joke" and called on Beijing to "stop giving us the runaround and deliver real change" or face trade sanctions.

Obama may also want to raise Beijing's refusal to resume military-to-military dialogue, as shown most dramatically when China refused to let U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visit last month when he was traveling in the region.

"It's our view and it's the president's view that military-to-military relations between the U.S. and China are in China's interest and in the U.S.'s interest," the senior administration official said. "This is not a favor that either side does to the other."

"We believe they should be continuous and should not be subject to ups and downs based on events in the relationship," he said, a reference to the administration's decision to go ahead with arms sales to Taiwan over Beijing's vociferous objections, as well as Chinese anger over Obama's welcoming of the Dalai Lama in February.

With Japan's Kan, Obama's mission is to make nice and get off to a better start than he did with ousted Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. The Kan administration definitely seems to be on board with that idea and the White House is sending the message that, as far as the United States is concerned, the dispute over the Futenma air station on Okinawa is settled.

"Prime Minister Kan has made clear that he endorses the agreement that we reached on basing in Okinawa. He does not question it, and he's looking to strengthen the alliance," the senior administration official said.

Obama is scheduled to visit India, Japan, and Korea on a trip in November, so the meetings are also meant to prepare for that as well. No word yet on whether Indonesia will be added as a stop.

When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted.

"As a policy matter, we're not going to identify those offers of assistance until we are able to see, you know, what we need, assess the ongoing situation. And as we accept those offers of assistance, we will inform you," Crowley said.

Reporters pointed out that the Bush administration identified assistance offers after the Katrina disaster, so what is this, a new policy? They pressed Crowley, but he refused to budge.

Then they mentioned Iran's offer of assistance, through its National Iranian Drilling Company. Crowley said there was no Iranian offer of assistance, at least in any official capacity. The reporters kept on it, asking why it was taking so long to figure out what was needed in the first place? That's the Coast Guard's decision, Crowley explained.

Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. 

"These offers include experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research and technical expertise, booms, chemical oil dispersants, oil pumps, skimmers, and wildlife treatment," the email read.

"While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future."

The Obama administration has been relentless in its messaging that it is doing everything possible to aggressively respond to the oil spill. But for the record, the current message to foreign governments is: Thanks but no thanks, we've got it covered.

A State Department official, speaking on background, said that the decision not to initially release the names of offering countries came directly from the State Department leadership.

The 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington doesn't start until next week, but the unofficial festivities begin tonight in Washington.

Only hours after touching down from President Obama's trip to Prague to sign the new START treaty, the State Department will be hosting a dinner event in Foggy Bottom for the "sherpas" from the various delegations and some other officials who took the opportunity to show up a couple of days early.

Attending tonight's dinner from the U.S. side are Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher, National Security Council senior director Gary Samore, and "threat reductions" coordinator Amb. Bonnie Jenkins.

Who are the "sherpas," you ask?

"‘Sherpa' is a term borrowed from the from the world of mountaineering, where the sherpas are the people that lead the way to the summit and make sure that it's safe for the important people who are in the climbing team," said Samore, who is the official sherpa for the U.S. delegation, "The sherpas are responsible for making sure everybody reaches the summit safely and leading the way. And if they don't, then they fall off the mountaintop first."

There have been three meetings of the sherpas so far as well as several meetings of the "sous-sherpas,' the deputies to the sherpas, who really delve into the nitty-gritty details of the summit.

Samore and the NSC's Ben Rhodes briefed reporters Friday on the official parts of the summit. They were clear to define the 47-nation meeting as having a limited and specific focus.

"The nuclear security summit is focused on a very specific issue of securing nuclear materials and cooperating to prevent nuclear smuggling, in order to reduce as much as possible the threat that terrorist groups or criminal gangs get their hands on nuclear materials that can be used for nuclear weapons," Samore said.

 "That really focuses on separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium. Those are the two materials that can be used for nuclear explosives," Samore said. "And if we're able to lock those down and deny them to non-state actors, then we have essentially solved the risk of nuclear terrorism."

President Obama will start the formal festivities Sunday by holding a series of meetings at Blair House, the historic home across Lafayette Park from the White House. The first meeting goes to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, followed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan. Obama will also see Nigeria's acting President Goodluck Jonathan, who just happens to be in town.

On Monday, Obama will move the show over the Washington Convention Center, where the summit will take place, and hold more one-on-ones. The first Monday meeting will be with King Abdullah II of Jordan, followed by Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, and President Hu Jintao of China, in that order. Obama's meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will be on Tuesday.

After he finished his meetings on Monday, Obama will host a welcoming ceremony at 5 p.m. and great each delegation leader personally. Of the 47 countries attending, 38 are being represented at the head of state or head of government level, the other nine at the vice president, deputy prime minister, or foreign or defense minister level.

On Monday night Obama will host a working dinner focused on "the threat and the magnitude of the threat," according to Samore. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, IAEA head Yukiya Amano, and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will be also there. "So we'll have 50 at the table," Samore said.

The plenary sessions begin Tuesday morning. The first session will focus on what specific actions countries can take to secure loose nuclear material and combat smuggling within their borders.

"The primary responsibility for securing nuclear materials, whether in the civil or the military sector, rests with individual countries," Samore said, adding he expects some countries to make announcements, such as converting nuclear reactors away from using highly enriched uranium to lower levels of enrichment.

Tuesday's lunch session will focus on the IAEA, whose job it is to set guidelines for the countries and provide technical assistance. Senators such as Richard Lugar, R-IN, are expected to join.

The afternoon plenary will focus on international and cooperative steps countries can take regarding nuclear security. Then Obama will hold a press conference to release the "communiqué" that will be issued. Then a closing reception.

If you're not a delegation leader and are feeling left out, don't worry. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu will be hosting meals for those interlocutors who are in town but not invited to the big table.

Although the conference is not until next week, the language of the communiqué seems close to final.

"There'll be a high-level communiqué from the leaders, which will recognize that nuclear terrorism is a serious threat, which will endorse President Obama's effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials over a four-year period, and will pledge, in a general way, steps that countries can take on both a national and an international level in order to strengthen nuclear security and prevent terrorists or criminal groups from getting access to materials for nuclear weapons," Samore said.

Does President Obama's decision today to open up parts of the U.S. outer-continental shelf to offshore drilling have any implications for foreign policy? Yes, according to David Pumphrey, deputy director of the CSIS Energy and National Security Program and former deputy assistant secretary for international energy cooperation at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The U.S. position has been to encourage a range of countries to open up their newly discovered offshore reserves to exploration, especially by western companies. But that didn't wash with several countries who rightly pointed out that the U.S. was telling them, "Do as I say, not as I do."

But now that the Obama administration is showing movement, albeit cautiously, on that front, the U.S argument that other countries do the same is strengthened, Pumphrey said.

"Your credibility is enhanced by the stance that somehow your offshore areas are not more protected and special than theirs," he said. "In many ways, the policy choice that had been made to keep our offshore out of bounds for oil development weakened our ability to go out and tell countries to make choices that might impact them negatively."

Some countries that have recently discovered large potential reserves but haven't yet moved to fully explore them include Brazil and Angola, both of which are being told by the U.S. to move faster.

"We're saying, yes, develop those new reserves and use western countries to do that," Pumphrey said, arguing that message will now seem more in line with U.S. actions.

"It helps to close the gap between the domestic and foreign policy."

U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell has postponed his planned talks with the Israelis and Palestinians indefinitely, waiting for a response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's list of demands follow the row over new housing in East Jerusalem.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley first said that Mitchell simply couldn't fit in the meetings before he is scheduled to be in Moscow on Thursday for a meeting of the Quartet, the Middle East peace contact group that includes the European Union, Russia, the United Nations, and the United States. "It's the tyranny of the schedule," he said.

But when pressed, Crowley said that Mitchell was still waiting for Netanyahu's formal response to Clinton, as conveyed during their 43-minute angry phone call last Friday. Of course, Mitchell had been planning to leave on Sunday and then was thinking about leaving as late as Monday evening, before the decision was made at the last minute not to go.

"We did delay that departure so that he would be informed by the Israeli response to the secretary's conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu," Crowley said, adding that State expects the response shortly and follow-on meetings are still expected, although nobody knows when.

A State Department official said on background that it was Mitchell's decision not to go on the trip, in consultation with State and White House officials. Another phone call between Clinton and Netanyahu could come tomorrow, the official added.

Obama administration officials involved in the discussions in Washington this week include the NSC's Dennis Ross, David Hale, Dan Shapiro, and others.

Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman is in Tripoli now in advance of the Arab League meeting later this month, a State Department official confirmed -- not mentioning that Libya remains angry at comments Crowley made from the podium earlier this month.

"We want to reaffirm the commitment by both sides that we will continue these proximity talks in the coming days and that is our plan," Crowley said. He revealed some of the distrust of the Israelis inside the Obama administration when he said, "They've told us they remained committed to the process. We just want to make sure that their words are followed by actions."

Clinton herself struck a similar tone Tuesday morning in her remarks after meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin.

"We are engaged in a very active consultation with the Israelis, over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to this process," she said. "Our goal now is to make sure that we have the full commitment from both our Israeli and our Palestinian partners to this effort."

Netanyahu's office was quick to issue a statement in response, which said, in part, "With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment [sic] to peace, both in words and actions."

Lawmakers from both parties have been active in asking the White House to back down from its harsh rhetoric toward the Israeli government and its list of demands, which reportedly include asking Netanyahu to reverse the decision to approve the building of 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem and promise to include core issues in the coming indirect negotiations.

Congressmen on both sides have said the U.S.-Israel dispute risks complicating international efforts to pressure Iran, but Clinton said, ‘I don't buy that ... We have an absolute commitment to Israel's security. We have a close, unshakable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people."

"I think both sides have now climbed up a tree that's going to be very difficult to climb down from," said Aaron David Miller, former Middle East negotiator. "The way each side is reacting seems to guarantee that it's not going to be easy to close this latest flap."

(Correction: Netanyahu's title corrected to "prime minister.")