Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Phil Gordon is traveling to Greece and Turkey until July 31. In Athens, he will discuss economic reforms and foreign policy issues with senior government officials, political party leaders, and members of the business and think tank communities. On July 29, he will arrive in Istanbul, where he will meet with senior Turkish government officials to discuss various bilateral and global issues.

Elsewhere:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker and former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter in Washington. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns will also meet with Crocker today.

• National Security Adviser Tom Donilon concluded two days of talks with senior Chinese officials, including President Hu Jintao, on Wednesday night in Beijing. According to a senior administration official, the talks focused on North Korea, the dispute over the South China Sea, and the administration's pivot towards Asia.

• In Vienna, Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller will consult with counterparts on strengthening conventional arms control in Europe.

• In London, Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith and Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal will attend events for the 2012 Hours Against Hate campaign's Olympic partnership.

• Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis is in Russia to promote U.S.-Russia subnational dialogue and engagement.

Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation Tom Countryman is in New York for the final week of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Conference, which ends Friday. Conventional arms trading is estimated to be worth more than $70 billion a year, and the conference is still behind schedule. According to AFP, discussions are still hindered by disagreements between the main powers and a "small but determined minority of states who oppose the treaty." 

Elsewhere:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will deliver the keynote address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Forward-Looking Symposium on Genocide Prevention in Washington. Later today, the secretary will meet with Haiti Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe.

• In Vienna, Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller will meet with counterparts about strengthening conventional arms control in Europe.

• Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis met with the legislative chairman and governor of Leningrad Oblast in St. Petersburg Tuesday.

• Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith is in London through July 27 for the 2012 Hours Against Hate campaign's Olympic partnership.

The Palestine Liberation Organization has denied recent reports that the White House issued a notice threatening to cut all aid to the Palestinian Authority if it launches a renewed drive for recognition at the United Nations.

"This is absolutely not true," PLO representative to Washington Maen Rashid Areikat told The Cable this week. "We do not know what they are saying. It's unfounded."

According to numerous online sources, Palestine National Council political chairman Khaled Mesmar, an Obama administration envoy issued the threat during a recent visit to Ramallah, and Areikat's comments come just days after senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat announced that the Palestinian Authority plans to ask the U.N. General Assembly  to recognize Palestine as an observer state. Last year's bid for statehood membership was blocked by the United States, and the top foreign aid leaders in the House of Representatives issued a similar threat in August 2011. 

On Capitol Hill, the Palestinian Authority has faced increasing scrutiny since it sought U.N. recognition last September. House Foreign Relations Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) has spearheaded congressional efforts to prevent federal budgetary allocations to the Palestinian Authority -- which have averaged nearly $600 million since Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 -- from being released, along with House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee chairwoman Kay Granger (R-TX). In March, Ros-Lehtinen agreed to release $88.6 million of $147 million slated for Palestinian development aid in the West Bank and Gaza that Republican lawmakers had placed on hold in August 2011, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton overruled the decision and notified Congress in April that the entire package would be disbursed.

"On the congressional level I think that what we are facing is a total ignorance and lack of understanding of the political dynamics and variables that are involved in U.S. assistance to the Palestinians," Areikat said in a short interview. "We are shocked to know that these members of Congress don't even have the minimum knowledge or understanding of Palestinian positions or the impact of U.S. assistance on improving the living, economic, and humanitarian positions of the Palestinian people. Resorting to this tool to try to influence Palestinian leaders into changing their political position is something that has proven in the past to be counterproductive, and it will not lead to a change in the Palestinian political position."

As Ros-Lehtinen continues to place holds on FY2012 funds, however, the Palestinian Authority is facing financial collapse. Saudi Arabia transferred $100 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority after Israel applied for a $100 million International Monetary Fund loan on its behalf and was refused, but the PA's budget deficit for the current year has already surpassed the $1 billion mark. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Monday that the PA is unable to pay about 150,000 of its employees.

The House's stance on foreign aid to the Palestinians has drawn the attention and ire of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA).

"House Republicans want to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority," he said during a speech at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition's annual conference on Tuesday. "I can't imagine anything that would tumble the Middle East more rapidly into a radical tailspin."

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), a co-signatory of the Cohen-Yarmouth-Connolly letter, which stresses the importance of American leadership to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, agrees.

"No, I do not support cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority," he said in an emailed statement Tuesday. "I oppose them unilaterally seeking statehood, the deal should be bilateral, but cutting them off would lead to more conflict not less."

Members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, worry increasingly about corruption within the Palestinian government, as a committee oversight hearing last week about the Palestinian Authority's "chronic kleptocracy" demonstrated.

"As a major political donor to the Palestinians, we need to be extremely concerned that our aid will be construed as support for a corrupt regime," House Foreign Relations Committee senior member Gary Ackerman (D-NY) said during the hearing. "If they unintentionally wind up enriching loathsome regime figures ... then we have a hard choice as our support for the people is outweighed by unintended, undesirable consequences of that flow."

Areikat dismissed the hearing as a politically motivated smear tactic.

"By holding these hearings all the time, the House Foreign Relations Committee is ignoring an important fundamental principle in the U.S. system, which is giving the other party the chance to present its case," he told The Cable. "They have been holding all these hearings on the Palestinian Authority while the Palestinian Authority and its representatives are absent, so it's only a charade. It's a politically motivated campaign that has nothing to do with transparency and accountability."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Los Cabos, Mexico, with President Barack Obama for the G-20 summit, where she will participate in discussions focusing on the European economic crisis. Clinton is slated to hold a bilateral meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu this afternoon.

President Obama is expected meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit -- a meeting that could be tense after Clinton accused Russia of sending attack helicopters to the Syrian regime. Robert Hormats, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, is accompanying the secretary and the president.

Elsewhere

• Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Mike Hammer are in Moscow for a new round of P5+1 talks with Iran.

• In Canada, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller will discuss arms control and nonproliferation with counterparts.

• Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Urban Summit at the Rio+20 meeting. Today, she will attend sessions about building sustainable cities.

The departure of Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) ranking Republican Richard Lugar (R-IN) from Congress will cause a reshuffle of foreign policy leadership in the GOP Senate caucus and could thrust Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) into a prominent role.

With Lugar losing his primary on Tuesday to Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, the position of top Republican on SFRC is set be to be vacant. The next three senators in line for that spot are Corker, James Risch (R-ID), and Marco Rubio (R-FL), in that order. With the possibility that Republicans could retake the senate in November, Lugar's successor on the committee could become chairman. Either way, the new top Republican on the committee will fundamentally change the character of the panel.

Lugar was known for his statesman-like approach, his deep attention to several specific issues such as nuclear non-proliferation, and his willingness to work with the administration and Democrats, for example on big projects like the New START nuclear reduction treaty with Russia. Perhaps due to his bipartisan character when it came to foreign policy, he was somewhat marginalized toward the end of his tenure by a caucus leadership that was determined to take a more combative and partisan approach to dealing with the Obama administration.

"While Dick and I didn't always agree on everything, I found during my time in the Senate that he was often willing to reach across the aisle and get things done," President Barack Obama said in a statement Tuesday evening.

As his primary campaign heated up, Lugar became distinctly more cautious on foreign policy matters, perhaps in recognition of the fact that his advocacy for New START, one of the administration's premier foreign policy projects, had hurt him politically inside the party. Lugar staunchly opposed the intervention in Libya last year and is firmly against the United States getting more deeply involved in the Syrian crisis now.

Behind the scenes, Lugar's staff is hugely active on a range of foreign policy issues. Not quite as bipartisan as Lugar himself, the GOP minority staff at SFRC butts heads with the majority staff at times. The personal relationship between Lugar and chairman John Kerry (D-MA) has always been cordial in public, although some say less cordial in private.

When Lugar leaves, the most likely choice to replace Lugar is Corker, a Tennessee businessman who like Lugar, opposed the war in Libya and opposes intervention in Syria. But Corker's foreign policy stance is even more wary of using U.S. power in foreign lands. He said earlier this year he doesn't even believe the Syrian revolution is about "democracy."

Corker was on the fence during much of the New START debate. He felt the treaty wasn't very significant in terms of nuclear reductions, and used the negotiations within Congress more as chance to secure funding for nuclear facilities, some of which are in his state. Corker is very effective at defending funds for nuclear modernization and stockpile maintenance.

Corker doesn't have a firm position on what to do in Afghanistan and he wasn't particularly vocal on the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.  He's seen on Capitol Hill as someone would have a bit of a learning curve ahead of him were he to become SFRC chairman or ranking member.

Behind the scenes, Corker has a very active foreign policy staff that is said by Hill sources to not get along well with Lugar's staff. If Corker takes over as lead Republican on the committee, there could be a house cleaning on the staff side.

But Corker's accession is not assured. The Republican committee members have the power to vote for whomever they want. In fact, after the 2010 election, there was an effort to vote Lugar out of the ranking member's position, but Lugar prevailed by a slim margin.

For some Republicans both on and off Capitol Hill, Corker is seen as neither aggressive nor hawkish enough on key foreign policy issues.

"It's difficult to make the case that someone who doesn't even see the merits of the fall of Bashar al-Assad for American interests deserves to have the top Republican spot on the committee," said one GOP foreign policy pundit. "There are other Republicans, such as Sen. Rubio, who have advocated a much more coherent and thoughtful foreign policy vision that might make them more appealing replacements for Sen. Lugar."

Rubio has laid out a foreign policy vision that tracks more closely with hawks like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). He is also seen as a rising star on foreign policy in the party and an SFRC chairmanship could bolster Rubio's national security bona fides ahead of a possible 2016 presidential run.

In the end, Corker might not even want the job. He is also currently in line to take over the top Republican spot on the banking committee, currently held by Richard Shelby (R-AL), who is barred by the rules from continuing on in that role due to committee term limits. If Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the ranking member on the finance committee loses his election, then Shelby's presumptive successor Mike Crapo (R-ID) would move over to take the top GOP spot on the finance committee, leaving Corker as the top Republican on banking.

Corker might prefer banking over SFRC -- and he can't chair both. Risch also has several possibilities for chairmanships that next year that could change the game on who gets moved up at SFRC.

In the end, some of Lugar's Senate colleagues said that his defeat showed the shrinking room for moderates in the Senate and the lowering national tolerance for those whose focus is beyond America's shores.

"There are people ideologically driven on the right and the left who want to pick up seats, look at what happened to Sen. Lieberman," said Graham in a short interview. "The lesson to be learned is vote your conscience and if you're an incumbent, you better not lose touch with home."

Canada is upset that Washington special-interest groups are thwarting the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird told The Cable, forcing the country to move forward to find other customers for its oil.

"There's a great deal of frustration, less with the administration and more that the future prosperity of our country could lie in the hands of some radical environmentalists and special interests," Baird said in a Thursday interview in Washington. "That causes us great concern, so we want to look to diversify our markets, whether that be with Japan, Korea, or China, which has expressed a great interest."

U.S. President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada's permit application to build the pipeline in January after being compelled to issue a quick decision on the application by congressional legislation. He had received pressure from environmental groups, which had organized protests around the country opposing the construction of the pipeline.

No decision is expected on the pipeline this year, although Obama did announce last month that he intends to approve the southern piece of the pipeline soon. On Wednesday, Nebraska lawmakers passed a bill to re-launch a review of the pipeline route.

But Ottawa isn't waiting around for the United States to make a decision. The Canadia government is proceeding to build its "Northern Gateway" pipeline that would end in British Columbia, where the oil could be shipped directly to East Asia.

"It was certainly driven home to the energy sector in Canada that being captive to a special interest can have huge consequences on the future prosperity of our country. That's certainly known and accepted in a way that it wasn't last fall," Baird said.

Canada also knows how to deal with environmental groups, said Baird. The Canadian government has eliminated environmental impact studies for 90 percent of projects and has sped up the approval process, he said.

According to Baird, the United States is losing jobs due to the delay of the pipeline approval in Washington. But in a way, Canada stands to benefit from the impasse.

"Oil sands oil currently sells at a discount because we are a captive market, and if we could diversify that market, that discount could end," said Baird.

"If you look at all the oil around the world, there's precious little of it that is found in stable economies and stable democracies, and we want to share that resource with our closest partner," he said. "We're going to work hard to see the project approved, hopefully early next year."

Baird came to Washington for the G-8 foreign minister's meeting, which focused on the crises in Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Canada supports humanitarian and medical aid to the Syrian people but not arms for the Syrian opposition, Baird said. He also said there's no talk right now within NATO about establishing buffer zones inside Syria using NATO assets.

After Syrian troops fired over the Turkish border this week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested that Turkey might invoke NATO Article 5, which provides for common defense of any threatened NATO country. Baird said the red line was if Syrian troops actually enter Turkey.

"There will be strong international support for Turkey if Syrian forces cross the border," he said.  "Canada is a member of NATO, and if Syria wants to conduct military operations in a NATO country, they will get a strong reaction."

He didn't clarify what that strong reaction might entail.

Baird also shared news of a bet he made Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the NHL playoff series between the Ottawa Senators and the New York Rangers. If the Senators win, Clinton must wear their jersey. If the Rangers win, Baird will sport a Rangers sweater.

"After the Ottawa Senators win, she'll look great in red," he said, noting that in Canada, unlike in the United States, red is the liberal color.

In private phones calls this week, a top State Department official has been sending the message that the Egyptian military leadership is not behind the recent raids on NGO organizations and the prosecutions of aid workers, including American citizens.

According to three NGO officials with knowledge of the conversations, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns has been calling around to various stakeholders to keep them informed on the ever-worsening saga involving charges against 43 NGO workers, including 19 Americans, who stand accused of fomenting anti-government protests in Cairo. Part of Burns's message has been that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took executive power last February after ousting President Hosni Mubarak, may not ultimately be behind the raids or necessarily in favor of the prosecutions that resulted.

"We are keeping the affected NGOs apprised of our efforts to resolve this situation," a State Department official told The Cable. "There is a vacuum of authority. We have been directly pressing the authorities in Cairo, including the SCAF, although they may not be the driving force behind this." 

The American Embassy in Cairo has claimed in similar discussions that the SCAF was surprised by the Dec. 29 raids on several NGOs, including the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House, the NGO officials said. The raids were reportedly conducted by Interior Ministry forces, not army soldiers.

The Obama administration has an interest in drawing a distinction between the actions of the SCAF, with which the United States has maintained a multi-decade alliance, and other parts of the Egyptian government, including the judiciary and the Ministry of International Cooperation, run by Fayza Abul-Naga, a longtime Mubarak loyalist suspected to be driving the effort to prosecute the aid workers.

For the NGO officials, the distinction is less important because they believe that the SCAF should exert more influence over Abul-Naga to stop the prosecutions and harassment of NGO groups, even if military leaders are not personally responsible for them.

"The SCAF is running the country, and whether they knew about the raids or not is beside the point. They bear ultimate responsibility for what is going on," one NGO official said. "She's the public face of this campaign and if they want to they can put pressure on her."

The United States' annual $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt is now under intense scrutiny in Washington. Many in the NGO community and on Capitol Hill believe the State Department is trying to defend the aid as a means of preserving what's left of the U.S.-Egypt strategic relationship, which has been a linchpin in maintaining U.S. influence in the region and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

Earlier this month, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman was dispatched to Cairo to confront the Egyptian government about the raids. He told the Egyptian media during that trip, "The administration has continued to make a very strong case for our assistance to Egypt."

That was before the Egyptian judiciary refused to let aid workers leave Cairo and decided to charge them with criminal offenses, including Sam Lahood, the Cairo head of IRI and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jake Walles led a classified briefing for lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday, after which senators who participated complained that they had heard no real plan to end the crisis. Those same lawmakers said the administration was working valiantly on the issue, but with no measurable success.

Lawmakers could propose legislation to immediately cut off assistance to the SCAF, rather than wait until the administration is required to certify that Egypt has met new, more stringent conditions placed on the annual aid package, but Congress isn't quite there yet.

"The Egyptians ought to know what they're doing charging and detaining Americans on what I believe are trumped-up charges is endangering the aid we are giving them," Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) told The Cable Tuesday. "We have a real interest in having good relations with Egypt because they have a central role in the region. On the other hand we can't just sit back and let them do what they're doing with the NGOs."

In a stream of statements Tuesday, a drumbeat of top lawmakers threatened to support withholding aid to Egypt if the NGO situation isn't resolved. "Congressional support for Egypt -- including continued financial assistance -- is in jeopardy," Lieberman said in a press statement along with Sens. Kelly Ayotte and John McCain (R-AZ), the chairman of the board of IRI.

"Yesterday's prosecutions are frankly a slap in the face to Americans who have supported Egypt for decades and to Egyptian individuals and NGOs who have put their futures on the line for a more democratic Egypt," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) said Tuesday.

"This is not the way an ally should be treated. I believe that we should re-evaluate the status of our bilateral relationship during this transition period," said SFRC member Ben Cardin (D-MD).

"The Egyptian government's actions cannot be taken lightly and warrant punitive actions against certain Egyptian officials, and consideration of a cutoff of U.S. assistance to Egypt," said House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

"Continuing down this path will make it increasingly difficult for Congress to provide military and economic assistance to Egypt and for the Administration to certify legal requirements necessary for aid to move forward," said House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee ranking Democrat Nita Lowey (D-NY).

For its part, the Egyptian government is projecting calm. In a news conference Wednesday, Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri said that the prosecutions will go forward. "Egypt will apply the law... in the case of NGOs and will not back down because of aid or other reasons," he said.

If the State Department truly believes that the judiciary and international cooperation ministries are solely to blame for the NGO crisis in Egypt, it's possible U.S. diplomats got that information directly from the Egyptian government.

At last weekend's meeting of the 2012 Munich Security Conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr professed that the executive branch in Egypt had no role and no influence over the NGO cases. "We are doing our best to contain this but…we cannot actually exercise any influence on the investigating judges right now when it comes to the investigation," he said, eliciting scoffs of disbelief from the audience.

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."