The State Department is further scaling down the staff at the U.S. embassy in Damascus, citing increased violence and the inability of U.S. diplomats to effectively do their jobs there.

"Due to security concerns in Syria, in October 2011, the embassy was designated an unaccompanied post with restricted staffing. The Department has decided to further reduce the number of employees present in Damascus, and has ordered a number of employees to depart Syria as soon as possible," stated a Jan. 11 travel warning. "U.S. citizens should avoid all travel to Syria."

Airline services into and out of Syria are also cutting operations and U.S. citizens should leave now if they can, the travel warning stated. The consular section at the U.S. embassy in Damascus is no longer going to be open to the public, so American citizens will now have to make an appointment. Moreover, the embassy is warning Americans that if they get in trouble in Syria, they might be on their own.

"Our ability to assist U.S. citizens in an emergency is extremely limited and may be further constrained by the fluid security situation," the warning said. "Syrian efforts to attribute the current civil unrest to external influences have led to an increase in anti-foreigner sentiment. Detained U.S. citizens may find themselves subject to allegations of incitement or espionage. Contrary to the terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, of which Syria is a signatory, Syrian authorities generally do not notify the U.S. Embassy of the arrest of a U.S. citizen until days or weeks after the arrest. Moreover, in the past, security officials have not responded to U.S. Embassy requests for consular access, especially in cases of persons detained for ‘security' reasons. There have been numerous credible reports of torture in Syrian prisons."

One embassy official who won't be leaving, however, is Ambassador Robert Ford, who continues to engage Syrians both in person and on the U.S. embassy's Facebook page. In his Jan. 5 post, Ford acknowledged that terrorists may be attacking the Syrian regime but said that the regime was broadly responsible for the violence.

"Indeed there are terrorists attacking people in Syria. I'm the American ambassador and I just acknowledged it; in fact we've acknowledged and condemned violence all along," wrote Ford. "We strongly condemned the December 23 suicide car bomb attacks. But the question is what started all this violence and how to stop it? Can the Syrian government oppress a large part of the population that demands dignity and respect of basic human rights or is its violence making things even worse?"

French journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in the city of Homs today on a government-sponsored trip of the city, becoming the first Western reporter killed during the Syria conflict. The perpetrators of the attack remain a mystery.

All the GOP presidential candidates agree on one thing: The United States should cut foreign assistance and international humanitarian assistance programs. Their only differences are over how much.

"The American people are suffering in our country right now. Why do we continue to send foreign aid to other countries when we need all the help we can get for ourselves?" asked a woman in the audience of Tuesday's GOP primary debate in Las Vegas.

Rick Perry started off the responses by calling for "a very serious discussion about defunding the United Nations." The crowd cheered and applauded.

Calling the Palestinian drive to seek member status at the United Nations in September a travesty, Perry said that was reason enough to stop contributing. "Why are we funding that organization?" he asked.

Mitt Romney said that defense-related portions of the foreign aid budget should be transferred to the Defense Department and humanitarian aid responsibilities should be ceded to the Chinese government.

"I happen to think it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give it to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people that are -- and think of that borrowed money," he said to applause from the crowd.

If either of the leading candidates were somewhat measured, Ron Paul was not. He said that foreign aid "should be the easiest thing to cut" because it's not explicitly authorized in the Constitution. "To me, foreign aid is taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in poor countries, and it becomes weapons of war, essentially, no matter how well motivated it is," he said.

Paul also said we should cut all foreign aid to Israel. Michele Bachmann disagreed, taking the opportunity to make the case that President Barack Obama is the first president to put "daylight" between the United States and Israel.

"That's heavily contributed to the current hostilities that we see in the Middle East region," she said, reprising her criticism of the entire Arab Spring.

The candidates also weighed in on defense spending. Bachmann was asked if defense spending should be on the table for cuts, and wavered somewhat, opening the door to cuts while saying that $500 billion in defense budget cuts that would be triggered if the congressional supercommittee can't come to a deal to find at least $1.2 trillion in cuts was too much.

Newt Gingrich, calling himself a "cheap hawk," said that the supercommittee was not qualified to make such decisions and said the defense budget should be driven by strategy and threats, not arbitrary numbers.

"The idea that you'll have a bunch [of] historically illiterate politicians who have no sophistication about national security trying to make a numerical decision about the size of the defense budget tells you everything you need to know about the bankruptcy of the current elite in this country -- in both parties," he said.

For FP Passport's compilation of the debate's foreign policy highlights, click here.

The United States and North Korea will hold their first direct talks since December 2009, as the Obama administration explores ways to return to multilateral talks on the Hermit Kingdom's nuclear program.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-Gwan is already on the way to New York for the talks, which are supposed to happen either Thursday or Friday, according to State Department officials. The State Department hasn't announced its delegation to the talks, but we're told by two informed sources that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, the State Department's special representative for North Korea, is expected to participate. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited the delegation.

Following the Bosworth-Kim meeting, the North Korean delegation will meet with a group of U.S. experts and academics organized under the banner of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), led on this project by former diplomat Donald Zagoria. NCAFP is hosting the meetings, as they did in October 2009, when North Korean negotiator Ri Gun came to New York under similar circumstances. At that time, Zagoria was joined by former diplomat George Schwab, Korea Society president Evans Revere, and former Ambassador to China Winston Lord.

Ri was spotted at the Beijing Airport with the North Korean delegation.

In a short phone interview, Zagoria told The Cable that the experts' meeting with the North Korean delegation was scheduled for Monday, Aug. 1, as a "Track 2" discussion -- diplo-speak for unofficial talks conducted by trusted private individuals. He declined to speak about the bilateral meeting, only saying that the experts' meetings had clear boundaries and realistic expectations.

"We started these meetings in 2003. We've had a number since then when it was possible," Zagoria said. "We hope to have frank discussions on the all the relevant issues. Our goal is to help both sides clearly understand each other's positions."

Joel Wit, a former U.S. nuclear negotiator who met with the North Koreans in Germany in March, told The Cable that the talks could signal the Obama administration's willingness to move away from its policy of "strategic patience," which basically amounts to waiting for the North Koreans to make positive moves while strengthening its alliances with Japan and South Korea.

The New York meetings are the second step of a three-step process to resume multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear program, said Wit. The first step was for the North Koreans and South Koreans to resume discussions, which has already occurred. The second step is for the United States and North Korea to meet. And the final step is to resume the Six-Party Talks, which also involve China, Russia, and Japan.

Taking that third step won't be easy. The Obama administration has made clear it won't return to the Six-Party Talks until the North agrees to abide by its previous commitments on denuclearization. The DPRK now says that denuclearization must be achieved by both sides simultaneously and has started an ambitious uranium enrichment program.

Wit said that despite the gap in positions and the aggressive North Korean behavior, the United States should act now to jumpstart negotiations rather than allow the security situation on the Korean Peninsula to deteriorate further and let the North Korean nuclear program advance unchecked.

"We're rapidly approaching a point where we're going to have to make a serious decision about what we're going to do about their [uranium program]," said Wit. "So that means seriously considering some incentives, like reactor assistance.... It's something we've got to deal with before it gets out of hand."

Victor Cha, a former NSC director for Asia, said that North Korea's bad behavior since the Six-Party Talks were abandoned in 2008 shouldn't give anyone confidence that they are negotiating in good faith.

"It has been almost three years since a full round of Six-Party Talks, and since the last round, the North has done just about every heinous act in violation of the letter and spirit of the agreements that had been negotiated," he said. "No one expects North Korea is serious about denuclearization, and Pyongyang has done nothing during Obama's tenure to demonstrate otherwise."

The Obama administration has been quietly putting pressure on the South Korean government to relax its demands for an apology from North Korea over the sinking of the Cheonan warship and its shelling of a South Korean island, Cha said. The administration believes that North Korea will be less aggressive if talks are underway, he said.

"So there are clear tactical reasons for the U.S. to re-engage. But does anyone have a strategy? Pundits will call for a bigger and better agreement this time, but after 25 years and two agreements in 1994 and 2005, I am less confident that such an agreement is attainable," he said.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland set the expectations for this week's meetings low in Monday's press briefing.

"We see this as a preliminary session where we're going to lay out very clearly our expectations for what will be necessary to not only resume Six-Party Talks, but to improve direct engagement between the U.S. and the DPRK," said Nuland.

A senior State Department official, speaking to reporters during Clinton's trip to Asia, said that China was on board with a more active policy of engaging North Korea.

"I think despite the fact that China, in meetings with the United States, will rarely displays open displeasure, I think you can sense behind the scenes, there is substantial unhappiness with what's transpired with respect to Pyongyang's intransigence and provocative actions," the official said.

Two GOP senators opened another line of criticism of President Barack Obama's approach to the Middle East on Thursday, this time calling on the administration to more strongly criticize the Syrian government for its deadly crackdown on popular demonstrations and begin engaging the Syrian opposition.

Government violence against protesters in Syria is escalating, with security forces reportedly killing 15 people on Wednesday during a raid on a mosque in the southern city of Deraa. Some reports put the night's death toll at 37 or more. The State Department put out a statement condemning the deaths and issued a 90-day travel alert on Thursday that warned Americans about the violence surrounding the protests.

"The United States is deeply troubled by violence and civilian deaths in Dara'a at the hands of security forces. We are concerned by the Syrian Government's use of violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrests in Dara'a to hinder the ability of its people to freely exercise their universal rights. We condemn these actions and extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who have been injured or lost their lives. We call on the Syrian Government to exercise restraint and refrain from violence against peaceful protestors," The statement read.

But Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) want to know if the Obama administration is reaching out to Syrian opposition leaders and offering them support, as it did in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

"The Syrian people must know that the United States stands with them against the brutal Assad regime.  We can ill afford another timid embrace of a democratic uprising," the senators said in a Thursday statement. "We urge the President, Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Ford to publicly condemn the murders committed by the Assad dictatorship and to demonstrate their support for the Syrian people."

By invoking Ambassador Robert Ford, Kyl and Kirk are calling for the administration to make good on its argument that the United States needed an ambassador in Damascus to have maximum influence with the Syrian government. Kyl and others Republicans held up the Ford nomination for 10 months because they saw the appointment of any ambassador as a reward to the Syrian regime, and they wanted the administration to more clearly spell out its Syria policy.

The president used a recess appointment for Ford to circumvent the Senate confirmation process. Kyl and Kirk now want Ford to use his perch to condemn the Syrian regime's crackdown.

"Ambassador Ford should begin a sustained campaign of outreach from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to the Syrian opposition movement," they said.

The Syrian government and the U.S. embassy in Syria have never been close: An internal report last April stated that the access of embassy officials to those inside the regime is scarce. This makes the danger for Americans in Syria even graver.

It is still unclear who has organized the demonstrations in Syria, so the Obama administration may find it difficult to engage with opposition figures, even if it wanted to.

Pressure on the administration to get tough with the Syrian regime is growing. The Washington Post printed an editorial today that called on Obama to demand an investigation into the killings in Deraa and tighten sanctions on Damascus.

"After Wednesday's massacre, Syrians are likely to feel still angrier - but they also will be watching the response of the outside world," the editorial stated. "That's why it is essential that the United States and Syria's partners in Europe act quickly to punish Mr. Assad's behavior. Verbal condemnations will not be enough."

UPDATE: Late Thursday afternoon, the office of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney put out the following strongly worded statement on the violence in Syria:

The United States strongly condemns the Syrian government’s brutal repression of demonstrations, in particular the violence and killings of civilians at the hands of security forces.  We reject the use of violence under any circumstances.  We are also deeply troubled by the arbitrary arrests of human rights activists and others.  Those responsible for the violence must be held accountable.  The United States stands for a set of universal rights, including the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and believes that governments must be responsive to the legitimate aspirations of their people.  We call on the Syrian government to exercise restraint and respect the rights of its people and call on all citizens to exercise their rights peacefully.

As President Barack Obama stopped by the Japanese embassy to pay his respects to those who lost their lives in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami crisis, the State Department was scrambling to help Americans evacuate northern Japan.

"Even as Japanese responders continue to do heroic work, we know that the damage to the nuclear reactors in Fukushima Daiichi plant poses a substantial risk to people who are nearby," Obama said on Thursday in the White House Rose Garden after returning from the Japanese embassy, where he signed the condolence book. "That is why yesterday we called for an evacuation of American citizens who are within 50 miles of the plant. This decision was based upon a careful scientific evaluation and the guidelines that we would use to keep our citizens safe here in the United States or anywhere in the world."

Obama authorized the voluntary departures of family members and dependents of U.S. officials working in northeastern Japan on Wednesday night. The State Department has deployed teams around northern Japan to help any U.S. citizens who want to leave.

Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy told reporters that the first U.S. chartered flight left Japan on Thursday morning, Washington-time, as part of the State Department's new policy of aiding the departure of U.S. citizens. The plane took the citizens to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Embassy teams were at Tokyo's Haneda and Narita airports sweeping for U.S. citizens who wanted to leave.

The U.S. embassy is also sending 14 buses to pick up Americans living north of the nuclear plant in Sendai province. This assistance was necessary in order to get them to the airport because of the lack of transportation in that area, Kennedy said.

Kennedy also defended the U.S. embassy's Thursday advisory that citizens should stay at least 50 miles from the reactor, which is more aggressive than the 20 kilometer no-travel zone that the Japanese government has imposed. The Defense Department has authorized departure for families of service members for the entire main Japanese island of Honshu, but State hasn't gone that far.

Kennedy said that, at present, there won't be any authorization for non-essential State or DOD personnel to leave Japan, as they are needed to aid in the crisis response.

"It is our determination that all State Department personnel -- and I believe, after some conversations I had with the Pentagon, which you can address direct to them -- that they have also determined that all employees, service members in that case, constitute emergency cadre who are needed to carry out the national security and the assistance missions and the military missions that we're engaged in," Kennedy said.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Citizens Services Jim Pettit said that, in addition to consular teams in both Tokyo airports, there are also consular teams searching for Americans in areas north of Tokyo, such as Miyagi, Iwate, and Ibaraki prefectures. But there won't be any search efforts inside the 50-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima reactor.

When asked if he thought that they would find Americans still inside the evacuation zone, Pettit said, "I would be surprised if we don't."

Kennedy said that the United States had an agreement with the consular teams from Canada, Britain, and Australia to report to each other if they find another's citizen in distress. To date, there are no confirmed deaths of American citizens.

He estimated there are about 90,000 Americans in and around Tokyo and about 350,000 Americans in Japan.

Obama spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Thursday night and pledged whatever support the United States could provide.

"In the coming days, we will continue to do everything we can to ensure the safety of American citizens and the security of our sources of energy," Obama said. "And we will stand with the people of Japan as they contain this crisis, recover from this hardship and rebuild their great nation."

Before the 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan on March 10, one of the biggest news stories in Tokyo was then State Department Director of Japan Affairs Kevin Maher's alleged remarks disparaging Okinawans for their stance on the relocation of a U.S. air base on the island. Maher was removed his post due to the controversy, but nevertheless has been working around the clock to help lead the U.S. government's response to the crisis.

Inside the "Operations Center" on the 7th floor of the State Department's headquarters in Foggy Bottom, the Japan Earthquake Task Force is working 24 hours a day to coordinate U.S. assistance to the stricken area and keep lines of communication open between U.S. government agencies, foreign governments, and non-governmental organizations on the ground. Maher is the coordinator for the night shift (daytime in Japan), and has been working from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. every night since the quake hit.

Maher was removed as director of the Japan office at State on March 9, following reports that he told a group of American University (AU) students that Okinawan people were masters of "extortion," but he was not fired and it was never proven that he made the incendiary comments. Maher has denied the accuracy of the press reports regarding his comments. According to State Department sources, he planned to retire following the controversy, but has now put off that retirement to contribute to the earthquake response, which could last for a while.

Maher is uniquely qualified to help in the response, and not just because he led the Japan Affairs office until the day before the quake. He has served in Japan multiple times during his career, and was the U.S. embassy's minister-counselor for environment, science and technology affairs in Tokyo from 2001 to 2005, during which time he covered the nuclear industry.

Ironically, Maher's experience as consul in Okinawa from 2006 to 2009 might also come in handy. Maher's alleged remarks to the AU students spoke to the frustration of both U.S. and Japanese officials about the plan to relocate the Marine Corps air base in Futenma to a different part of Okinawa's main island. Many Okinawans oppose having a base on the island at all.

But as it turns out, the Futenma air base has been active in supporting the earthquake relief response, including deploying helicopters to aid in search and recovery of victims of the devastating tsunami.

The State Department's task force is made up of 14 people representing various bureaus and offices throughout the administration. Their job is to coordinate the U.S. government and military response and serve as the central point of contact for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other principals, while, acting as the main communication link to the U.S. embassy in Japan.

The coordinator for the day shift is Rust Deming, a professor of Japan studies at Johns Hopkins and a former ambassador to Tunisia, who stepped in to head up the State Department's Japan office when Maher stepped down last week. Deming has held much more senior positions, so his reappearance in the East Asian and Pacific (EAP) bureau is seen as a temporary step to draw upon his expertise until a full-time replacement can be found.

USAID also has established a Response Management Team (RMT) on the 9th floor of its headquarters in downtown Washington's Ronald Reagan building, headed by Mark Bartolini, which is tasked with supporting USAID's disaster and assistance response team (DART) on the ground in Japan and with coordinating the humanitarian side of the U.S. government assistance effort.

For close observers of the U.S.-Japan relationship, the Maher incident shows that more needs to be done to build trust between officials on both sides to ensure that smaller issues don't get blown out of proportion such that larger cooperation suffers, especially in an emergency.

"The alliance managers showed a lack of courage by throwing [Maher] under the bus," and removing him from his post, one Washington Japan expert told The Cable. "But now they realize they need all Japan hands on deck for this crisis."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley is already the subject of one controversy today due to remarks he made about the treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning. But Crowley is also in trouble due to a tweet he sent out this morning -- and later deleted -- comparing the situation in the Middle East to the disaster in Japan.

"We've been watching hopeful #tsunami sweep across #MiddleEast. Now seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan," Crowley tweeted Friday morning, a State Department official confirmed to The Cable. Crowley's Twitter site no longer includes the tweet, suggesting that he deleted it after the fact. Crowley didn't immediately respond to a request from The Cable.

Multiple administration sources told The Cable that the Defense Department leadership was very upset with Crowley about both incidents.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was asked at his Friday press conference if he agreed with Crowley's statements at MIT on Thursday that Manning's treatment by the Defense Department was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid."

Obama said that he had personally asked the Pentagon if the conditions imposed on Manning were really necessary.

"They assured me that they are," Obama said. He wouldn't go into detail but added that, "some of this has to do with Private Manning's safety."

Reached by The Cable, Crowley confirmed that he did in fact make the remarks. "What I said was my personal opinion. It does not reflect an official USG policy position. I defer to the Department of Defense regarding the treatment of Bradley Manning," he said.

The U.S. intelligence community has been behind events throughout the Arab world for over a month and producing deficient work, the Senate's top leader on intelligence issues complained to the head of the CIA.

"Our intelligence, and I see it all, is way behind the times. It is inadequate. And this is a very serious problem," Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told The Cable in an interview on Tuesday.

Feinstein criticized the U.S. government's intelligence products in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya, saying that the intelligence community has given her "nothing that we didn't read in the newspapers" since January.

"The only one where there was good intelligence was Tunisia," she said, "but really no intelligence on any of the others, whether it was Yemen, or Bahrain, or Egypt... nothing."

Feinstein said she recently raised her unhappiness over the intelligence community's work directly with CIA Director Leon Panetta, who promised to produce better information for lawmakers.

"It's going to be improved. Mr. Panetta is aware of this and is going to take action," she explained.

She attributed the shoddy work product to a lack of human intelligence assets on the ground in the Middle East as well as the intelligence community's failure to maximize the use of open source information, including social networks, which Feinstein said accounts for an increasing amount of raw intelligence.

"I'm not a big computer person but I just went up on one of these sites and all I had to do was look," Feinstein said.

Feinstein said that she has not spoken about the issue with the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Feinstein also joined the growing chorus of senior Democratic senators who oppose any type of military intervention in Libya, including arming rebel groups or imposing a no-fly zone.

"This is a civil war. It is not Qaddafi invading another country. I think [arming the rebels] is an act of war and particularly the no-fly zone is [an act of war]," she said.

The U.S. government shouldn't set a precedent for intervening in Arab civil wars, Feinstein said. She said that such a step could lead to more interventions by the U.S. military, which is already strained by the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Saudis -- Do you put a no fly zone up there if this happens there? Bahrain -- Do you put a no-fly zone up there? We've got our hands full," she said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) has repeatedly called on the administration to work with allies to set up a no-fly zone over Libya. But Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) is also against the idea for now.

"There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before that option can be exercised," Levin told The Cable. "Not only what is the mission, what are the risks, but also who are the supporters of it. If there is no support in the Arab and Muslim world or neighboring countries, what it could result in would be a very negative outcome."

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), an Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee member and former secretary of the Navy, also said on Tuesday that armed intervention in Libya on behalf of the rebels was not wise at this time.

"We all know that military commitments, however small, are easily begun and in this region particularly very difficult to end," said Webb. "I am of the opinion that it's not a good idea to give weapons and military support to people who you don't know."

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has a message for those in Congress who want to slash development and foreign-aid budgets: Cuts will undermine U.S. national security.

On the heels of a major speech on the coming reforms to America's premier development agency, Shah sat down for an exclusive interview with The Cable to explain his vision for making USAID more responsible and accountable, an effort he said will require increased short-term investment in order to realize long-term savings.

But if Congress follows through on a massive defunding of USAID as the 165-member Republican Study Group recommended yesterday, it would not only put USAID's reforms in jeopardy, but have real and drastic negative implications for American power and the ongoing missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Shah.

"That first and foremost puts our national security in real jeopardy because we are working hand and glove with our military to keep us safe," said Shah, referring to USAID missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and Central America, and responding directly to congressional calls for cuts in foreign aid and development.

The RSC plan calls for $1.39 billion in annual savings from USAID. The USAID operating budget for fiscal 2010 was approximately $1.65 billion. The RSC spending plan summary was not clear if all the cuts would come from operations or from USAID administered programs. 

"That would have massive negative implications for our fundamental security," said Shah. "And as people start to engage in a discussion of what that would mean for protecting our border, for preventing terrorist safe havens and keeping our country safe from extremists' ideology … and what that would mean for literally taking children that we feed and keep alive through medicines or food and leaving them to starve. I think those are the types of things people will back away from."

The interests between the development community and U.S. national security objectives don't always align, and this tension is at the core of the debate on how to reinvigorate USAID. Short-term foreign-policy objectives sometimes don't match long-term development needs, and U.S. foreign-policy priorities are not made with development foremost in mind.

But Shah's ambitious drive to reform USAID seems to embrace the idea that development investments can be justified due to their linkage with national security. He is preparing to unveil next month USAID's first ever policy on combating violent extremism and executing counterinsurgency. He also plans to focus USAID's efforts on hot spots like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, while transitioning away from other countries that are faring well and downgrading the agency's presence in places like Paris, Rome, and Tokyo.

Shah pointed out that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and ISAF Commander Gen. David Petraeus have all come out in strong support of increasing USAID's capacity to do foreign aid.

"In the military they call us a high-value, low-density partner because we are of high value to the national security mission but there aren't enough of us and we don't have enough capability," he said. "This is actually a much, much, much more efficient investment than sending in our troops, not even counting the tremendous risk to American lives when we have to do that."

For those less concerned with matters of national security, Shah also framed his argument for development aid in terms of increased domestic economic and job opportunities: If we want to export more, we need to help develop new markets that are U.S.-friendly.

"If we are going to be competitive as a country and create jobs at home, we cannot ignore the billions of people who are currently very low income but will in fact form a major new middle-class market in the next two decades," he said.

One of the main criticisms of USAID both on Capitol Hill and elsewhere is that the agency has been reduced over the years to not much more than a contracting outfit, disbursing billions of dollars around the world to organizations that have mixed performance records. In Shah's view, if Congress wants USAID to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, it has to increase the agency's operating budget and allow the agency to monitor contracts in-house.

"It was the Bush administration that helped launch the effort to reinvest in USAID's capabilities and hiring and people, and the reason they did that is they recognized you save a lot more money by being better managers of contracts," Shah said. "We have a choice. We have a critical need to make the smart investments in our own operations … which over time will save hundreds of millions of dollars, as opposed to trying to save a little bit now by cutting our capacity to do oversight and monitoring."

Shah wouldn't comment on the latest and greatest USAID contracting scandal, where the agency suspended contractor AED from receiving any new contracts amid allegations of widespread fraud. But he did say that his office would be personally reviewing large sole-source contracts from now on, requiring independent and public evaluations, and that more corrective actions are in the works.

"I suspect you'll see more instances of effective, proactive oversight that in fact saves American taxpayers significant resources," he said.

One of the two biggest problems identified in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy Review released Thursday (PDF) is the Pakistani military's failure to crack down on some of the terrorist groups using Pakistan's tribal areas as a safe haven from which to launch attacks across the border into Afghanistan.

Pakistan launched a major offensive, involving approximately 30,000 troops, against extremists in South Waziristan in October 2009, and its military has also undertaken efforts to stamp out militants in other border areas. However, the military has yet to launch offensive military operations in North Waziristan, where insurgent groups wreaking havoc in Afghanistan reside.

Pakistan's envoy in Washington, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, reacted to the report by saying that Pakistan will engage Islamist groups in North Waziristan, including the Haqqani network (no relation), but only when there is sufficient support in all areas of Pakistan's government for the effort, and not until they are confident that the mission can be completed effectively.

"Pakistan has made it very clear that we are fighting terrorists because they are a threat to our own existence as a modern democratic nation. We will fight all groups in all parts of our country," Haqqani said in an exclusive interview with The Cable. "But we will follow timelines that suit our own capabilities and can lead to success."

Haqqani said that the Pakistani army, which has taken the fight to six out of the seven regions inside Pakistan in which domestic militant groups operate and suffered thousands of casualties in the process, is simply not in a position to expand its war on the extremists now.

"Right now, it's only a question of operational capability and readiness. Our armed forces have been engaged in dealing with flood relief work," he said. "We have to see what resources we will allocate in which part of the country, and those rather than any political factors are responsible for any waiting period."

He also noted that "there is a fragile consensus in Pakistan in favor of military action against regional elements," and that Pakistan's government has no choice but to make the decision to attack North Waziristan groups on a timeline that prioritized Pakistani considerations over American ones.

"Sometimes it's easy for our allies to tell us what to do and for us to tell our allies what to do. But everyone makes decisions based on their own perceptions and analysis of on ground realities," Haqqani said.

In several discussions with other Pakistani officials, an even more complicated picture of the Pakistani position on attacking groups in North Waziristan emerges. The Pakistanis largely believe that the U.S. government is being unrealistic in terms of the timelines it wants for cracking down on terrorist safe havens along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, which have existed for decades.

"There will always be a gap between our two countries because the Americans want things things done quickly and done their way," another Pakistani government official said.

A third senior Pakistani official said that many Pakistanis feel that the Obama administration is placing too much of the blame on Pakistan for the lack of progress in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

"The U.S. keeps telling Pakistan to do more, but Pakistan keeps telling the U.S. to do more on certain questions such as speeding up building up of Afghan army, establishing a real process toward reconciliation, and providing Pakistan the means for large scale operations," the official said.

The United States has provided Pakistan with several billions of dollars in military and economic aid to support its war against domestic insurgents. But many in the Pakistani government have criticized what they say characterize as the slow arrival of these funds, which they say are in any case too small to address Pakistan's severe problems.

"It's very simplistic to measure success in amount of assistance provided to Pakistan," one Pakistani official said.

In remarks delivered during the rollout of the strategy review Thursday, President Obama was diplomatic when discussing his administration's ongoing drive to push Pakistan to do more in North Waziristan.

"Increasingly, the Pakistani government recognizes that terrorist networks in its border regions are a threat to all our countries, especially Pakistan. We've welcomed major Pakistani offensives in the tribal regions. We will continue to help strengthen Pakistanis' capacity to root out terrorists," said Obama. "Nevertheless, progress has not come fast enough. So we will continue to insist to Pakistani leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with."

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy acknowledged in an interview the same day that there was more work to be done on the relationship before the Pakistanis were willing to fully support the U.S. and NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

"Given the ups and downs of our historical relationship with Pakistan, they fear our abandonment," she said. "Their calculus is very much affected by the long-term commitment they feel from us and in working in a strategic partnership."

The White House recognizes that its efforts have fallen short so far. "The bottom line is that Pakistan is a country where we have little influence, little access and little credibility," one of Obama's aides told The New York Times.

The administration's official line, therefore, is to agree with the Pakistani government and express sensitivity to its claim that they simply can't expand their war against extremists at this time.

"We would like them to move tomorrow, we would like them to take out these people tomorrow," said the new U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter. "But we understand they're telling us honestly about the capacity of their military, and when they are able, we are convinced they will move in."

But for many in Washington, the open-ended delay in Pakistan's promise to expand military operations into North Waziristan represents a strategic choice, and is not just a result of the military's operational limitations. But whatever Pakistan's reasons, the delay  doesn't inspire confidence that the Obama administration can meet its timelines for making progress in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan, meanwhile, is hedging its bets, supporting proxy actors like the Quetta Shura Taliban and Haqqani Network that might counter Indian interests in Kabul after the United States and its allies eventually withdraw," wrote Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security. "The insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan are one of the two Achilles heels in the NATO strategy."

Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met for seven hours in New York in an attempt to strike a deal on extending Israel's partial moratorium on settlement construction. This week, the State Department announced it would no longer pursue a settlement freeze extension as a way to revive the talks.

Why did the agreement fall apart? The United States had offered Israel a host of security incentives, including 20 brand-new fighter planes, for Netanyahu to take back to his cabinet in exchange for a renewed three month settlement moratorium. But President Barack Obama never put that deal in writing, and the Israelis never were clear on its terms or what would happen when the three extra months expired.

"We have determined that a moratorium extension will not at this time provide the best basis for resuming direct negotiations," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday. "We will consult with the parties in the coming days as we move forward. And as we proceed, our position on settlements has not and will not change. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements, and we will continue to express that position."

When Clinton takes the microphone on Friday evening at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center event, the world will be watching to see how she charts out the U.S. view on the way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. She's predicted to say by experts close to the administration that that the direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians will formally pause, and that the United States will begin "parallel talks" with each side separately.

There is a slight difference between the "parallel" talks and the "proximity" talks that preceded the "direct" talks, which started in September with great fanfare. In the "proximity" talks, the two sides were in close proximity and the U.S. mediator shuttled back and forth between the parties. In "parallel" talks, the U.S. meetings with the two sides could be far apart in both time and geography.

But Clinton is expected to argue that the parallel talks are the best way to get back to direct talks, which the United States still believes are the only way to reach a negotiated two-state solution. She is not expected to spell out exactly how long the "parallel" talks could last.

Some experts see the shift as an overdue recognition by the Obama administration that their focus on the settlement issue was wrongheaded, as was their commitment to extending the direct talks, no matter the cost.

"Their actions are an admission that the route they were on was not the right one," said Rob Malley, Middle East director for the International Crisis Group. "The U.S. administration reached the conclusion they couldn't get the deal [with the Israelis] and even if they got it, it wasn't clear the Palestinians would accept it. And even if they accepted it, wasn't clear what would happen after 90 days expired except that there could be another crisis."

Crowley acknowledged that the negotiations over the proposed 3-month extension of the settlement moratorium became too much of the focus of negotiations.

"We thought that this had, in a sense, become an end in itself rather than a means to an end," Crowley acknowledged. "We're going to focus on the substance and to try to begin to make progress on the core issues themselves. And we think that will create the kind of momentum that we need to see - to get to sustained and meaningful negotiations."

Over the last month, the Israelis had intense discussions with U.S. officials about the specifics of the offer to extend the settlement moratorium, but the negotiations never came to fruition. For example, regarding the 20 F-35 fighter jets the Obama administration was offering as a sweetener,  the Israelis wanted to know how the United States could promise the fighters without Congressional approval. They also had further questions about the offer: Who would pay for the planes? When would they be delivered? Could the Obama administration even promise F-35 planes, considering they don't yet exist and are years behind schedule?

More broadly, the United States never agreed to Netanyahu's demand that this would be the very last time the Israelis would be asked to extend the settlement moratorium. Moreover, administration officials could not assure Israel that the 90 days would yield progress toward a peace deal. The Palestinians would just wait out the three months, the Israelis predicted.

"We felt uncomfortable with the premise of it," one Israeli official told The Cable, "It would not necessarily guarantee that after three months time we would make any headway with the Palestinians, so we in three months would be in the same situation we are today."

And so the negotiations fizzled. They were snuffed out when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Israeli official closest to the Obama team, publicly declared the direct talks over because, as he put it, the United States was "very busy with North Korea and the WikiLeaks releases."

Barak is headed to Washington Friday, where he will attend the Saban Center event and meet with Clinton on Friday and Defense Secretary Robert Gates next Monday. Israeli negotiator Isaac Molcho is also in town with his team. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is also speaking at the Saban event, and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat will be in Washington with his team to meet with Obama administration officials. Special Envoy George Mitchell will travel to the region next week.

The Israeli line is that end of the neogtiations over settlements is a good thing, because it will force the Palestinians to choose to either come back to the table without what Israel calls "preconditions," such as a settlement freeze.

"It's probably better to redefine the playing rules and the Palestinians are going to have to back down from their precondition," the Israeli official said. "They can't just wait for the Americans to deliver the Israelis on a plate."

But the Palestinians view the failure of the U.S.-Israeli negotiations as just one more sign that the Israelis will never meet their demand to stop building in disputed areas while talks are ongoing. They also see the failure to convince Israel to agree to a settlement freeze as yet another sign the Obama administration isn't willing to use sufficient leverage over Israel to advance the peace process.

"Although the U.S. administration may have their own reasons, the fact that they have backed down [from insisting on a moratorium extension], an objective they set for themselves a year and a half ago, is really of a great concern to us,"  said the head of the PLO mission in Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat in an interview. "One wonders in the future if they will be able to get Israel to comply with international law to reach a conclusion to the process."

In the most favorable analysis, by taking settlements off the table, the Obama administration can now come up with new and creative ways to get both parties back to the negotiating table -- without constantly looking at the clock.

"We have removed self imposed obstacles by agreeing that we will give up on the settlement freeze and by removing the requirement for direct talks," said Malley.

But that still leaves all sides quite far away from real, sustainable progress towards peace.

"All of the other obstacles remain," Malley added. "The lack of trust and the huge gaps between the two sides, the divided Palestinians, the dysfunctional Israelis, the polarization of the region, the damaged credibility of the U.S... all those remain."

Incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) isn't waiting until the new Congress comes into session to oppose some of the Obama administration's foreign policy positions. On Wednesday, she called for the White House to impose new sanctions on North Korea in light of a new report on Pyongyang's arms proliferation.

The U.N. Security Council released a report today that accuses North Korea of supplying ballistic missile and nuclear technology to Syria, Iran, and Burma. Authored by the so-called "Panel of Experts," which includes experts from U.S., the U.K., China, France, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The report was held up for months due to Chinese opposition to its release. The report claims that Pyongyang is flouting recent U.N. Security Council resolutions forbidding it from engaging in weapons proliferation.

"Evidence... indicates that the DPRK has continued to provide missiles, components, and technology to certain countries including Iran and Syria since the imposition of these measures," the report states. "The Panel of Experts is also looking into suspicious activity in Myanmar..."

That's enough for Ros-Lehtinen to call for the administration to back off its effort to reach out to North Korea.

"Instead of continuing its failed strategy of seeking to engage the regime in endless negotiation, the administration must ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang. At the upcoming G-20 summit in Seoul, President Obama must persuade the heads of state to call for the imposition of new and effective U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea," Ros-Lehtinen said.

"In addition, the U.S. and other responsible nations must use every means at their disposal to apply pressure on Pyongyang, the first step being to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism."

The State Department has made it clear that weapons transfers alone don't meet the legal threshold for relisting a country as a state sponsor of terrorism. And there's no sign the Obama administration's engagement with North Korea is picking up steam, considering that Pyongyang refuses to reaffirm the commitment to denuclearization it agreed to in 2007.

But Ros-Lehtinen is making it clear that she will be an aggressive critic of the administration's foreign policy positions as chairwoman, much as she was when she was ranking Republican on the committee. And she's making it clear that she's not afraid to ramp up the rhetoric to do it.

"This forthcoming report should be a wake-up call for the U.S. and other responsible nations," she said. "We must act quickly and firmly to stop North Korea's proliferation before it ends up costing American lives and those of our allies."

More than $1 billion of aid to earthquake-torn Haiti still has not reached the island nation, but that's not the fault of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- despite the recent charge leveled against the conservative senator by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Rather, the complicated State Department-Congressional appropriations process is to blame for the delay.

On Sept. 30, Stewart took Coburn to task for his hold on the Haiti Empowerment, Assistance and Rebuilding Act of 2010, a pending bill that would set five years' worth of authorizations (how Congress wants to see the money spent) for Haiti reconstruction and relief funding. Coburn wants to see Congress find savings in other parts of the State Department to pay for $500 million for Haiti next year, in fiscal 2011. Stewart's rant was based on this Sept. 28. AP article.

Referencing that, Stewart called Coburn an "international a**hole of mystery" and continued: "So for any Haitian who right now lives on top of a pile of rubble washing their clothes in their own urine bucket, while Sean Penn gives your kids cigarettes while regaling you with Fast Times at Ridgemont High anecdotes, hang in there. Cause we need to sort all this out so you won't have to fill out duplicate forms. You're welcome!"

The problem is that Coburn's hold is not responsible for delaying the $1.15 billion Congress already appropriated in late July to help Haiti. That bill, which is totally separate from the one Coburn is holding up, was the supplemental appropriations act signed by President Obama on July 29. Authorization bills, like the one that Coburn objects to, are useful for setting out Congressional direction on how money should be spend, but aren't strictly necessary to the disbursement of the funds. The appropriations bills are the ones that actually spend the money.

Even the State Department acknowledges that Coburn is not responsible for the delay in this tranche of funds for Haiti.

"Senator Coburn's hold is not related to the $1.15 billion pledge made by the administration in March," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Cable. He explained that the State Department and Congress are still working on how exactly to spend the money, totally apart from Coburn's hold on the separate authorization bill.

State was given 45 days from July 29 to submit a "spend plan" for the Haiti money, after which Congress had two weeks to submit questions about its plan. Today, Coburn posted the State Department's spending plan for Haiti, along with its transmittal letter, which shows that it was given to Congress Sept 20. That's 52 days after the bill was signed, more than the 45 allowed -- but still not bad for government work.

Now, State and the relevant congressional committees are finishing up their work on the spend plan and the State Department should start actually giving out the money soon, Crowley said.

"We continue to answer questions and address issues that members of Congress have raised, but we will soon be obligating those funds on the ground in high impact ways to help the people of Haiti build back better," Crowley said.

He also pointed out that Congress had already put $300 million on the ground in Haiti while the process to release this $1.15 billion progressed.

Coburn also posted USAID's fact sheet on humanitarian assistance to Haiti, which shows that over $1.1 billion has already been spent, although that was for emergency relief, not the longer term recovery and reconstruction assistance that is now being sought.

Overall, Crowley argues, "there has been no undue delay by the administration in releasing the $1.15 billion, given the notification requirements legislators included in the supplemental legislation."

Regardless, whether you are a Haitian or a late-night comedian wondering why the money hasn't flowed yet, in this instance, you should direct your questions to the State Department and Congress, not Tom Coburn.

"Coburn may be an a**hole when it comes to holding up bills, but he's not the bad guy here," said one Senate aide. "The a**hole here is the bureaucratic process... and Jon Stewart."

Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, both recently returned from touring parts of northern Pakistan devastated by widespread flooding, pledged to increase U.S. government aid to the region.

"I've seen a lot of disasters since I entered the government a long time ago... but what I've never seen before, and what I doubt anyone has ever seen it before, is the way millions of people are spread out across an area the size of Italy, clinging to dykes, living outside the refugee camps, waiting for the water to recede so they can go home," Holbrooke said on a conference call Monday morning. "But there are no homes to return to."

The United States will increase its commitment by $76 million, the State Department announced, bringing its assistance package to $345 million. The United Nations called for $2 billion in aid relief for Pakistan over the weekend, on top of their original $459 million appeal, which is now 80 percent funded.

The new U.S. assistance will be spent immediately on food aid. "There continues to be significant unmet needs in basic food assistance," Shah said, noting that Pakistani leaders had told him that 50 percent of immediate food needs were not being satisfied.

The money will not come out of the funds set aside as part of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Pakistan aid bill. $60 million of that legislation's $1.5 billion commitment for this fiscal year have already been diverted to flood-related disaster assistance, and more will likely be reprogrammed in that direction as the response continues. "The amount and details and so on has to be decided on a case to case basis in consultation with the Congress," Holbrooke said.

But Holbrooke made clear that the United States and the international community is not committing to rebuilding Pakistan alone over the long term and the Pakistani government would have to take the lead.

"The international community is not going to be able to pick up the full costs of the reconstruction phase, the tens of billions of dollars. The international community has been quite generous already," Holbrooke said.

Despite his best efforts, Holbrooke didn't completely avoid becoming embroiled in media controversies during his latest trip to Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy had to deny that Holbrooke made a statement that the United States would not "accept slackness" from the Pakistani military in the war on terror.

Also, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported that Holbrooke told reporters in Pakistan that he believed that Pakistan's civilian leadership would survive the latest crisis, saying, "I don't see evidence that the government is drowning."

Nevertheless, Holbrooke sounded pessimistic about the ability of Pakistan to handle the fallout from the flood disaster on its own. When asked Monday if the government in Islamabad would ever have enough money to dig themselves out of the crisis, Holbrooke said, "Nobody knows... probably not."