Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling to Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa through August 10. Wednesday, the Secretary met with Senegal President Macky Sall in Dakar. She is accompanied by Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, Assistnat Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, and Counselor and Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.

Elsewhere:

• Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Robert Hormats is traveling to Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa through August 12, where he will meet with representatives from relevant government ministries, the business community, and local conservation leaders.

• Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard is traveling to Burkina Faso and Geneva through August 4. In Burkina Faso, Richard will visit Damba refugee camp with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and meet with First Lady Chantal Campaoré. In Geneva, Assistant Secretary Richards will meet with donors to increase support for relief operations in the Sahel.

• Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston is in Guatemala through Wednesday to lead a Clean Cookstoves Delegation, which will meet with high-level representatives from government, private sector, and non-governmental organizations to discuss new opportunities for cooperation in the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

• Special Representative Farah Pandith is in Burma and Cambodia through August 3 to meet with civil society groups, government officials, youth, and participate in Ramadan activities.

• Special Represenative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis is in Koror, Palau, through August 4 to participate in the inaugural Micronesia Women's Summit.

• Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell is traveling to the Pacific Islands through August 7.

• Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Jose Fernandez is traveling to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Indonesia through August 9.

• In Bujumbura, Burundi, Office of Global Criminal Justice Ambassador-at-Large Stephen Rapp will participate in official meeting on global criminal justice issues.

• Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby is in London for the Global Health Policy Forum.

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.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, and discussed issues including Agent Orange, soldiers missing in action, and deepening cultural and economic bilateral ties with Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. "The United States greatly appreciates Vietnam's contributions to a collaborative, diplomatic resolution of disputes and a reduction of tensions in the South China Sea," said the secretary, who is accompanied by Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Robert Hormats, Chief of Protocol Ambassador Capricia Penavic Marshall, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan. Tomorrow Clinton will arrive in Vientiane, Laos, for meetings with Prime Minister Thonsing Thammavong and other senior government officials, making her the first secretary of state to visit the country in 57 years.

Elsewhere:

• Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns is traveling to Yemen, Israel, the West Bank, and Lebanon through July 13. In Sanaa, Yemen, the deputy secretary is meeting with political leaders and civil society representatives to discuss bilateral security interests and Yemen's ongoing humanitarian crisis. From Sanaa, Burns will travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah to meet with senior Israeli officials as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad.

• In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer will participate in the Women's Leadership Forum and the Community of Democracies' Governing Council Meeting. She will also meet with female leaders from government and civil society. She then travels to Siem Reap, Cambodia, with Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston for the Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Policy Dialogue for the Lower Mekong Initiative.

• In Turkey, Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Maria Otero will meet with government officials, human rights activists, youth, and non-governmental and international organizations to discuss human rights issues.

• Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Phil Gordon is traveling to Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Cyprus to meet with senior government officials and EU political directors.

• In London, USAID Administrator Raj Shah will participate in the London Summit on Family Planning.

• Assistant Secretary for Democracy, human Rights, and Labor Michael Posner is traveling to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Egypt through July 16.

• Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal is traveling in Germany and Poland through July 15.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Paris with Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Phil Gordon and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, where she participated Friday in the third meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People group, an international forum attempting to end Syria's 16 months of violent conflict. Clinton called on member countries to "demand implementation" of the Annan plan, impose "real and immediate consequences" for non-compliance, and make it clear that Russia and China will "pay a price" for "standing up on behalf of the Assad regime."

She also met with Syrian opposition leaders, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, and President François Hollande. Her discussion with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas focused on Israeli and Palestinian "efforts to pursue a dialogue." On July 8, Secretary Clinton and Ambassador-At-large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer will attend the Conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo, where donors are "expected to pledge a total of $35 billion in development aid through 2015," according to Agence France Presse. For details on the rest of Clinton's trip to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, check out yesterday's Cable preview.

Assistant Secretary Gordon will also travel to Croatia, Serbia, Kosvo, and Cyprus, to attend the Croatia Summit, meet with senior government officials, and work with EU partners.

Elsewhere:

• Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell is in Beijing for bilateral consultations.

• In Delft, Netherlands, Office of Global Criminal Justice Ambassador-At-Large Stephen Rapp will attend meetings on global criminal justice issues.

Accession to the Law of the Sea Treaty is crucial to protecting U.S. economic interests, senators and industry leaders argued during a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday.

"On rare earth minerals, on oil and gas, on whatever unknown minerals or products may be findable under the ocean, we have a choice," said committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA). "We can either join the major industrial nations ... and secure the benefits of the Law of the Sea Treaty for our businesses and our industries, or we can remain on the outside."

The European Union and 161 countries belong to the treaty, which came into force in 1994 and created rules for determining mineral and other rights beneath the ocean floor. Senator Kerry has led the push for ratification, while critics argue that the treaty erodes American sovereignty and diverts royalties to an international seabed authority. Pentagon leaders, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, have voiced their support for accession, which they say would codify U.S. rights to use international shipping lanes and lay underwater cables, level the playing field for mineral rights, and result in more jobs and revenue.

"Today ... China controls about 97 percent of the production market for these [rare earth] minerals," Kerry said. "Can anybody in their right mind suggest that the U.S. is safer ... in a situation where we're sitting on the outside?"

Ratifying the treaty would significantly increase the potential scope of U.S. domestic energy production by expanding the definition of the outer continental shelf, top industry representatives told the committee.

"It would secure an additional 4.1 million square miles [of ocean floor] under U.S. jurisdiction," said American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Jack Gerard.

But to reap the benefits, Kerry added, the United States needs to act quickly so that U.S. energy companies can compete with foreign firms.

"They want and need certainty in order to invest the billions of dollars required to develop the extended shelf, especially in the Arctic, where the Chinese and Russians are already laying claims," he noted.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Thomas Donahue testified that the treaty is "critical to America's global leadership" and that the benefits of accession outweigh any negative criticism.

"The U.S. has more than any country to gain or to lose," he said. "The treaty is not perfect. It'll be changed like all treaties are, but we better be sitting at the table."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton departs today for Europe, where she will travel to Finland, Latvia, and Russia through June 30. Tomorrow, Clinton will hold bilateral meetings with senior Finnish officials in Helsinki to discuss foreign-policy issues including Syria, Iran, and the European economy. On June 28, Clinton will travel to Riga to meet with senior Latvian officials about NATO missions and the country's economic recovery. From there, the secretary will go to St. Petersburg, where she will lead the U.S. delegation to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's Women and the Economy Forum. Clinton, who is accompanied by Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Phil Gordon and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, is also scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and civil society leaders.

Elsewhere:

• Ambassador-At-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin will discuss counterterrorism initiatives with German government officials in Berlin amid reports that a Norwegian man has received al Qaeda training in Yemen and is plotting an attack.

• In Central America, Assistant Secretary for Conflict and Stabilization Operations Rick Barton will meet with embassy partners and key stakeholders in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador through the Central American Regional Security Initiative.

• Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer is in Amman, Jordan, through June 27, where she is hosting the Working Group on Women's Empowerment, a gathering of female NGO, business, and academic leaders from across the Middle East and Africa. Verveer will also meet with Her Majesty Queen Rania, Jordanian government officials, and representatives from civil society and the private sector to discuss women's engagement in politics and the economy.

• Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield is in Lima, Peru, for the International Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Heads of Specialized National Agencies Against the World Drug Problem.

• In Haiti, Global Aids Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby will meet with Haitian first lady Sophia Martelly and participate in the signing of the Partnership Framework with the Government of Haiti.

• Office of Global Criminal Justice Ambassador-At-Large Stephen Rapp is in Tripoli, Libya, to attend meetings on global criminal justice issues.

• In Rome, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Mike Hammer will meet with Italian journalists, young political leaders, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials.

• Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston is in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the TED Global 2012 Conference. She will also meet with private and public sector leaders.

• Ambassador-At-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Luis CdeBaca is traveling to Switzerland and Morocco.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the U.N.'s Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, where she will participate in the U.S.-Africa Clean Energy Finance Initiative launch and hold meetings with Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati, Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, and Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic. Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental Scientific Affairs Kerri-Ann Jones, Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis, and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan are also at the conference.

Elsewhere:

• Deputy Secretary Tom Nides will depart for Mumbai, India, where he will discuss bilateral trade and regional economic cooperation.

• In Bangkok, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro held consultations on issues including counterterrorism, joint military exercises and exchanges, and security cooperation.

• Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson is still in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the U.S.-Africa Business Conference.

Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Mike Hammer are in Moscow for the final day of P5+1 talks with Iran. The talks "broke no new ground" as of Monday evening, the New York Times reported, and sanctions imposed on Iranian oil by the United States and the European Union are set to begin in July. One Iranian diplomat described Monday's atmosphere as "not positive at all," and many consider the talks deadlocked, but Tehran is reportedly willing to discuss the production of high-grade uranium, which the six powers want to negotiate down to a lower level of purity.

Elsewhere

• Under Secretary of Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Robert Hormats and Chief of Protocol Ambassador Capricia Penavic Marshall are in Los Cabos, Mexico, with President Barack Obama for the G-20 meetings, where he will participate in plenary sessions about financial issues, development, and trade. Hormats will participate in President Obama's bilateral meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao this afternoon. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan return from Los Cabos later today.

• In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Kerri-Ann Jones, Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston, and Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis will attend Rio+20. Today, Jones is slated to participate in a panel discussion about Global Health Observations, and Balderston will launch the Sustainable Supply Chain Partnership. Lewis is scheduled to attend an event about mayors taking action on climate change.

• Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro will travel to Vietnam, Brunei, and Thailand through June 22. His agenda includes leading the fifth iteration of the U.S.-Vietnam Political, Security, and Defense Dialogue; meeting with civilian and military officials in Brunei; and holding consultations about counterterrorism, security cooperation, and joint military exercises in Bangkok.

• In Brussels, Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith will meet with civil society, NATO, and EU representatives.

In an escalation of the United Arab Emirates' crackdown on foreign NGOs, the UAE government has detained foreign employees of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and is preventing at least one of them from leaving the country.

Late Wednesday, the director of NDI's Dubai office, Patricia Davis, an American, and her deputy director Slobodon Milic, a Serbian national, were stopped at the Dubai airport by UAE government authorities as they tried to leave the country, according to three sources briefed on the incident. Davis was eventually allowed to leave the UAE, but Milic was not. He was detained by authorities, and subsequently released but is still barred from leaving the UAE. The UAE government has also notified NDI that they plan to file criminal indictments against foreign NGO workers in the UAE for foreign interference in political affairs, the sources said.

"We understand that the deputy director for NDI in the UAE was briefly detained and then released. We are seeking more information from the government of the UAE on the matter," a State Department official told The Cable. "As the Secretary has said many times, we believe NGOs play a valuable and legitimate role in a country's political and economic development.  They should be able to operate consistent with regulations and standards and without constraints."

"We will continue to support civil society in the UAE and across the region.  NDI is a respected organization that has been working across the region and beyond to promote civil society development and democratic values.  The State Department is a firm supporter of NDI's activities," the official said.

The move mirrors the actions taken by the Egyptian government over the past three months, which included barring over a dozen foreign workers from leaving Egypt -- including Americans working for NDI, the International Republican Institute (IRI), and Freedom House -- and subsequently indicting them on criminal charges.

The U.S. government paid $5 million in "bail" money to secure the March 1 release of American NGO workers trapped in Egypt, including Sam LaHood, the Cairo director of the IRI and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then waived congressional restrictions on the $1.5 billion of annual U.S. aid to Egypt, which would have required that the State Department certify that Egypt was moving toward democracy and upholding civil rights.

Several of the American NGO workers who were indicted by the Egyptian government were not in Egypt at the time, and the National Journal reported Wednesday that the Egyptian government has asked Interpol to issue international arrest warrants for those NGO workers. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to convince Interpol to reject those requests.

The UAE government shut down and revoked the license of the NDI office in Dubai last week, just days before Clinton visited the region and raised the issue in a meeting with Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

"We very much regret it," Clinton said after the meeting. "We are as you know, as anyone who has visited the United States, strong believers in a vibrant civil society ... I expect our discussions on this issue to continue."

A U.S. congressional staff delegation has been in the UAE this week as well, and has been raising the NDI issue with both UAE and American officials on the ground. One congressional staffer in Dubai told The Cable Wednesday that UAE officials argued to the staff delegation that NDI was operating without a license, had no legal right to be operating in UAE, and was writing things that weren't true.

NDI Middle East Director Les Campbell said last week that his organization has no programs in the UAE, and the office "was simply a regional hub which supported programmes in places like Qatar and Kuwait."

The congressional staffers pressed the UAE officials to comment on the rumors that the UAE government was acting on behalf of the Saudi government, which is said to object to NDI's programs for Saudi women. But the UAE officials denied any knowledge of Saudi interference or pressure to the congressional staffers.

The staffer also said U.S. Ambassador to the UAE Michael Corbin downplayed the UAE government's actions in his meeting with the congressional delegation.

"Even more troublesome was [the U.S.] ambassador's statement in response to questions we raised about the shutdown in a meeting on Tuesday. He essentially suggested that it wasn't that big of a deal since NDI doesn't do any work in the UAE," the staffer said. "Moreover, he seemed to sympathize with their concerns given the changing situation in the Middle East and he characterized work that organizations like NDI do as ‘fomenting' political change."

Officials at NDI's Washington office and the UAE embassy in Washington declined to comment.

Both leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee told The Cable that $1.3 billion of annual U.S. aid to the Egyptian military is in real jeopardy due to the Egyptian government's harassment of American NGO workers.

Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and ranking Republican John McCain (R-AZ) both said on Tuesday that a withholding of military aid to Egypt was now on the table due to the Egyptian military's role in the Dec. 29 raids on several NGO groups in Cairo, including three U.S. government-funded organizations: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House.

The anger in Washington at the Egyptian government reached a boiling point this week when it was revealed on Jan. 26 that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's son Sam LaHood, the head of IRI's Cairo office, had been barred from leaving Egypt by the government, along with five other U.S. citizens.

The issue has already led to a divorce between the Egyptian government and its Washington lobbyists. The lobbyists said they dumped the Egyptian government over the NGO issue, while the Egyptian embassy claimed it dumped the lobbyists in order to save money.

Both Levin and McCain are set to meet with a visiting delegation of high-level Egyptian military officers next week in Washington, and they both said they will deliver the message that U.S. military aid to Egypt is tied to this issue.

"They should know that this action on their part jeopardizes a normal relationship between us," Levin said in a brief interview on his way out of the Democratic caucus lunch. "They know that, and that includes the impact it could have on aid."

McCain, who happens to be the chairman of the board of IRI, said in his own after-lunch interview that U.S. military aid to Egypt is "certainly a topic that [the Egyptians] have put on the table."

"It's hard to believe. IRI and NDI worked throughout Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union and we helped them with democracy. They're like mechanics. They come in and tell you how to organize voters, how party registration works, and that kind of stuff. They're not advocates of anybody," McCain said.

McCain has been exchanging letters with his contacts in Egypt but there's been no progress yet, he said. "I've known [SCAF leader Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi for years, and many of the other members of the Egyptian military. It's one of the few benefits of old age," he said.

Freedom House put out a fact sheet on Tuesday, written by its manager of congressional affairs, Sarah Trister, which argues Egypt has not met the legal obligations for receiving the $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid this year.

"Per the FY 2012 State and Foreign Operations Bill, before the administration can release the $1.3 billion in military aid for Egypt, it must certify that the government of Egypt is ‘supporting the transition to civilian government including holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.' At this point, it is clear these conditions are not being met," Trister wrote.

Moreover, the Freedom House fact sheet made the case that Egypt should not receive the $300 million it receives from the United States in economic and social assistance, mainly because this money goes through the Ministry for International Cooperation, which is led by the Egyptian official believed to be driving the NGO harassment: Fayza Abul-Naga.

"The ministry that receives this funding, the Ministry for Planning and International Cooperation, is headed by a Mubarak holdover who has been directing the assault against civil society," Trister wrote, referring to Abul-Naga.

Reuters reported Tuesday that the Egyptian Justice Ministry sent back a letter from the U.S. embassy requesting the Americans trapped in Cairo be allowed to leave.

The Washington Post ran an editorial on Tuesday criticizing the Egyptian military delegation for being tone deaf to the seriousness of the crisis, and calling on President Barack Obama's administration to use the military aid as leverage.

"The generals regard this funding as an entitlement, linked to the country's peace treaty with Israel. They appear to believe that Washington will not dare to cut them off, even if Americans seeking to promote democracy in Egypt are made the object of xenophobic slanders and threatened with imprisonment," the editorial said.

"Preserving the alliance with Egypt, and maintaining good relations with its military, is an important U.S. interest. But the Obama administration must be prepared to take an uncompromising stand. If the campaign against U.S., European and Egyptian NGOs is not ended, military aid must be suspended."

The Obama administration reacted cautiously to today's International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear weapons program and declined to say how exactly how they would respond. But across Washington, suggestions for tightening the noose on the Iranian regime were abundant.

"I'm definitely going to tell you we need time to study it," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Tuesday following the release of the IAEA report, which alleges that Iran had until 2003 an intricate and extensive program to design and build a nuclear warhead to fit atop a Shabaab-3 missile. The report also stated that Iran worked on components for such a warhead, prepared for nuclear tests, and maintained aspects of the program well past 2003 -- activities that may still be ongoing today.

"I think you know the process here: that after a report like this comes out, we also have a scheduled meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors coming up on November 18th, so Iran will be an agenda item at that meeting. So we will take the time between now and then to study this," Nuland said.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, two senior administration officials predicted that the Obama administration would increase sanctions on Iran in light of the report but declined to offer any specifics on what they might be.

That explanation wasn't well received by lawmakers in both parties on Tuesday, who offered plenty of specific ideas on how to ramp up pressure on Tehran and have no intention of waiting for the administration to "study" the IAEA's findings.

The Cable spoke on Tuesday with Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), John McCain (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about the report.

"It's of enormous concern to everybody and a lot of conversations are taking place right now about how to respond," Kerry told The Cable. "It clearly means we have to ratchet up on Iran, probably tougher sanctions and other things."

Kerry declined to endorse one big idea floating around town, namely to take actions that would collapse the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and ruin the country's currency, bringing the Iranian economy to its knees.

"There are a lot of options, you want to pick them carefully and you want to be thoughtful about what's going to be effective," Kerry said.

Kirk, who co-authored a letter in August with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calling for collapsing the CBI, and which was signed by 92 senators, tweeted today that the White House's reaction to the report Tuesday constituted "national security malpractice."

Kirk met with White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley on Monday night to give him the "hard sell" on the idea of collapsing the CBI, he told The Cable. Kirk said that the concept under consideration is to give friendly countries that are dependent on Iranian oil -- such as Japan, South Korea, and Turkey -- a time window to shift their purchases from Iran to Saudi Arabia.

Kirk and Schumer are planning to introduce a bill soon that would be a Senate companion to an amendment by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) to require the president to determine within 30 days the CBI's role in Iran's illicit activities. If the president determines that the CBI is complicit, the bill would require the administration to cut off any foreign banks doing business with the CBI from participating in the U.S. financial system.

The main risk in collapsing the CBI is that it could bring down the Iranian oil industry along with it, risking a cascading effect on world energy markets that would exacerbate the global economic crisis.

McCain told The Cable today that it's a risk he is willing to take. "Libya is cranking up their oil exports. There's always risk, but there's a greater risk when you know that they're about to become nuclear weaponized," he said.

"The first thing we should do is talk to the Russians and the Chinese and tell them to get with it and pass the increased sanctions through the U.N.," McCain said, adding that the Obama has leverage against Russian and China if it chooses to use it. "Russia wants in the WTO, China wants a lot of things. There should be consequences for their failure to act."

Graham agreed that the negative impact of collapsing the CBI was a necessary cost of ramping up pressure on Iran.

"We've got make a decision: What's the biggest threat to the world, a nuclear-armed Iran or sanctions that would hurt us and the people of Iran?" Graham told The Cable. "You've got two choices, the policy of containment or the policy of preemption. I'm in the preemption camp. I don't think containment works. The only way to stop this is to prevent this and that means changing behavior."

Graham said existing sanctions don't seem to be working, which means that the sanctions regime has to be fundamentally changed. "If that doesn't work, the other option is military force." But Graham cautioned that if there were to be a military strike on Iran, it would have to include a massive assault on Iran's counterattacking capabilities.

"You'd have to destroy their air force, sink their navy, and deal with their long-range missile threat. So you'd have to go in big," he said. "If you attack Iran you open Pandora's box. If you allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, you empty Pandora's box. So these are not good choices."

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said in a statement that the threat of military force must be credible and he called for Congress to pass a new Iran sanctions bill, one that the administration previously said was unnecessary.

The House and Senate have each unveiled a version of the bill that would tighten existing sanctions, compel the administration to enforce penalties already on the books, and levy a host of new restrictions against members of Iran's regime and companies that aid Iran's energy, banking, and arms sectors. The bills are a follow-up to the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act (CISADA) that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed in July 2010.

Former Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Cable that there's no consensus yet inside the administration or around the world that collapsing the CBI would be possible without doing severe damage to the world economy.

But Levitt offered several things the administration can do immediately to ramp up pressure on Iran, including pressuring countries to scale back Iranian diplomatic presence in their capitals, restricting the travel of Iranian officials around the world, and setting up a multilateral customs body to enforce sanctions against Iran, modeled after what was done in wake of the Kosovo crisis.

"The administration is not being creative enough with the tools they have," Levitt said. In the coming days, he predicted, "You are going to see scrambling as to what can be done."

The Obama administration is scrambling right now to find a way around the fact that existing U.S. law could force the United States to stop participating in the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO if the Palestinians are given member state status, setting a precedent that could repeat itself in a host of other U.N. organizations.

The administration is contending with a 1994 law (P.L. 103-236, Title IV), which would bar U.S. contributions "to any affiliated organization of the United Nations which grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood."

Another law (P.L. 101-246, Title IV), from 1990, states that, "No funds authorized to be appropriated by this act or any other act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."

The Palestinians cleared a hurdle this week when the UNESCO executive board approved their bid to join the organization, sending the matter to a vote by UNESCO's 193-nation General Conference. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized UNESCO on Wednesday for taking up the issue.

"I think that that is a very odd procedure indeed and would urge the governing body of UNESCO to think again before proceeding with that vote," Clinton told reporters in the Dominican Republic.

She acknowledged the "strong legislative prohibition that prevents the United States from funding organizations that jump the gun, so to speak, in recognizing entities before they are fully ready for such recognition."

The U.S. has not yet paid their bills on UNESCO for 2011, about $80 million, which is 22 percent of UNESCO's budget. If the law is triggered and the U.S. does not pay in 2012, the U.S. would lose its vote in the organization. Plus, UNESCO officials have told the U.S. that if U.S. funds are not expected over the next two years, they may have to initiate massive layoffs beginning in January to account for the shortfall in funds.

Palestinian membership in UNESCO would also grant them immediate membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The U.S. would have to stop contributing to WIPO but America is not a member of UNIDO.

We're told that the State Department is currently having their attorneys draft a legal opinion on how U.S. laws would affect U.S. participations in U.N. bodies that grant the Palestinians member state status. Their ruling will have ramifications not only for UNESCO, but for all other U.N. specialized agencies that the PLO is expected to submit their application to, such as the IAEA, WTO, WHO, World Bank, and others.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday that the administration was "still working" on what the legislative triggers regarding funding would mean. But a State Department official said that the administration has not been able to find a way around the law.

"We have a suicide vest padlocked around our torso and the Palestinians have the remote control," the State Department official said. "They get to decide whether they blow us up or not. It's 100 percent up to them."

Meanwhile, Congress is ratcheting up its own involvement on the issue. Later today, 10 House appropriators will call on UNESCO not to move forward with consideration of Palestinian membership, in a letter to UNESCO Executive Director Irina Bokova obtained by The Cable.

"We... respectfully request that you do everything in your power to ensure that the Palestine Liberation Organization's application to become a Member State does not come before the UNESCO General Conference," states the letter, prepared by the office of Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ). "Any recognition of Palestine as a Member State would not only jeopardize the hope for a resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but would endanger the United States' contribution to UNESCO."

Signatories of the letter include the heads of the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee, Kay Granger (R-TX) and Nita Lowey (D-NY), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Tom Cole (R-OK), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), Steve Austria (R-IL), Charles Dent (R-PA), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), and Adam Schiff (D-CA).

One senior Republican staffer pointed out the irony that it was President George W. Bush who brought the United States back into UNESCO, and now the United States might be forced to leave the organization by Obama -- a president who came to office promising to reverse what he argued was Bush's tendency to ignore the international community.

"Remember, we joined UNESCO in part because we needed them to help de-radicalize textbooks particularly in the Muslim world after 9/11 and as a platform to counter expanding anti-American attitudes in academia," the staffer said "And now, by de-funding UNESCO, we lose all the leverage we had gained."

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is calling for the United States to cut off its contributions to the United Nations, but only a few years ago, he helped lead an effort calling for reforms at the United Nations that recommended increased U.S. funding for several of its programs.

Gingrich, in a Wednesday op-ed entitled, "Suspend U.N. Funding Now!" criticized the United Nations for entertaining an expected resolution that would grant statehood recognition to the Palestinian territories. He said that the United States should suspend all of its contributions to the United Nations if the resolution is allowed to proceed.

"We should be willing to say that if the U.N. is going to circumvent negotiations and declare the territory of one of its own members an independent state, we aren't going to pay for it. We can keep our $7.6 billion a year," Gingrich wrote. "We don't need to fund a corrupt institution to beat up on our allies."

More broadly, Gingrich criticized the Obama administration's commitment to working within U.N. institutions, calling it "clearly a corrupt organization."

"The administration's commitment to ‘multilateralism' at the U.N. is nothing more than appeasement," he wrote.

But back in 2005, Gingrich was singing a different tune. He co-chaired a task force on how to improve the United Nations with former Senate majority leader and recently departed Special Envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell, and issued a report written with the help of the United States Institute of Peace.

"The American people want an effective United Nations that can fulfill the goals of its Charter in building a safer, freer, and more prosperous world," Gingrich and Mitchell wrote in a joint statement at the top of the report. "What was most striking was the extent to which we were able to find common ground, including on our most important finding, which was ‘the firm belief that an effective United Nations is in America's interests.'"

The task force featured a bipartisan set of foreign policy leaders, including Anne-Marie Slaughter, Thomas Pickering, Danielle Pletka, Wesley Clark, and James Woolsey.

The report did include a great deal of criticism of the United Nations, the U.N. Human Rights Council, and its ineffectiveness in protecting victims of genocide around the world. But Gingrich and Mitchell saw the answer to these problems as increasing funding for U.N. institutions, not withholding U.S. contributions from the United Nations.

They called for more staffing and funding for peacekeeping operations, more funding for the international mission in Darfur, a doubling of the budget for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and more funding for the World Health Organization.

As Mark Goldberg pointed out today on the U.N. Dispatch blog, the  $7.6 billion the United States contributes to the U.N. largely goes to support exactly those programs that Gingrich once saw as important enough to warrant budget increases. Moreover, U.N. supporters argue that withholding contributions gives the United States less influence over U.N. actions, not more.

"If the USA stopped paying its U.N. dues, it would be stripped of its voting rights at the U.N. Presumably, that would it much harder to defend Israel at the Security Council and General Assembly," Goldberg wrote.  "I can't help think that the Gingrich of 2004 would be appalled at the reasoning of 2011 Gingrich."