WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Palestinians’ success in joining UNESCO and Israel’s immediate retaliation has two main casualties: the peace process and the Obama administration.

Monday’s vote by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization to grant full Palestinian membership despite U.S. and Israeli objections exposed how little leverage Washington has on either side. It forced the Obama administration to withhold $60 million from the agency.

The vote appears to have dramatically lengthened the odds of resuming peace talks, which collapsed more than a year ago despite the efforts of President Barack Obama.

And it triggered what some analysts see as an overreaction by Israel, which on Tuesday announced plans to speed up settlement building and to withhold, at least temporarily, customs revenues and other fees that it collects for the Palestinians.

The biggest loser, it seems, is the United States and its long-shot hope of coaxing both sides back into negotiations.

“There are consequences in terms of the environment for getting these parties back to the table — which is going in the wrong direction,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Another U.S. official said the White House already had little stomach for running the domestic and foreign political risk entailed in launching any new peace initiative, and the latest developments have made such a move even more doubtful.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Palestinians’ success in joining UNESCO and Israel’s immediate retaliation has two main casualties: the peace process and the Obama administration.

Monday’s vote by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization to grant full Palestinian membership despite U.S. and Israeli objections exposed how little leverage Washington has on either side. It forced the Obama administration to withhold $60 million from the agency.

The vote appears to have dramatically lengthened the odds of resuming peace talks, which collapsed more than a year ago despite the efforts of U.S. President Barack Obama.

And it triggered what some analysts see as an overreaction by Israel, which on Tuesday announced plans to speed up settlement building and to withhold, at least temporarily, customs revenues and other fees that it collects for the Palestinians.

The biggest loser, it seems, is the United States and its long-shot hope of coaxing both sides back into negotiations.

“There are consequences in terms of the environment for getting these parties back to the table — which is going in the wrong direction,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Minister Ehud Barak who is now at the New American Foundation think tank in Washington, said, “The Palestinian strategy right now is hurting America more than it’s hurting Israel.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States wants Afghanistan’s neighbors to pledge to respect its sovereignty at regional talks this week, a U.S. official said Monday, even as Washington accuses Pakistan and Iran of meddling.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a conference in Istanbul Wednesday that the United States hopes will bring Afghanistan’s neighbors more directly into efforts to stabilize the country as U.S. troops withdraw.

A senior U.S. official said he hoped the countries gathered would commit to respect Afghan sovereignty; back a transition to Afghan security leadership; support Afghan efforts to achieve a political solution and promote economic growth.

“We are urging all of Afghanistan’s neighbors to commit to a set of principles … that underscore full respect for Afghan sovereignty and territory,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

What is unclear, however, is whether any words put on paper at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia held in Istanbul will lead to actions on the ground, notably by Pakistan and Iran. U.S. officials accuse Iran of providing lethal aid, including weapons and training, to insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The United States has blamed the Haqqani network, which some U.S. officials suspect of being supported by Pakistani intelligence, for a series of recent attacks in Afghanistan, including a September 13 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

During an October 20-21 visit to Kabul and Islamabad, Clinton pressured Pakistani leaders to take military action against the Haqqani network in hide-outs along the Afghan border.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department may miss a year-end target to approve TransCanada Corp’s Canada-to-Texas Keystone oil sands pipeline, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, risking a further delay to the most important new crude oil conduit in decades.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the State Department still hoped to make a decision by the end of this year, which has been its target, but that its highest priority was to carry out a thorough, rigorous review. The decision has already been pushed back once.

A further delay would not only be a blow to TransCanada, it could also prolong a massive gap between U.S. and global oil prices because oil traders are counting on Keystone’s 700,000 barrel-per-day capacity to relieve a build-up of crude in the U.S. Midwest, which doesn’t have enough pipelines to ship growing Canadian output to Gulf Coast refineries for use around the United States.

The ruling, which falls to the State Department because the line crosses national borders, is forcing President Barack Obama into a decision that effectively pits environmental safety against job creation and energy security.

“While we still hope to make a decision by the end of the year, we are first and foremost committed to a thorough, transparent and rigorous review process,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“So we’re carefully reviewing all of the information we’ve received, including the many comments from the public, and will make a decision only after we have weighed all of the facts,” the official added.

‘ALL ABOUT TIMING’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Monday called on Syria to stop its “smear campaign” against the U.S. ambassador, whose recall to Washington was matched by Syria’s decision to bring home its envoy amid a spat over anti-government protests in Syria.

Ambassador Robert Ford had angered the Syrian government by cultivating contacts within the 7-month-old grass-roots movement against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, leading to attacks on his embassy and residence, diplomats said.

Western diplomats told Reuters Ford left Syria over the weekend following a series of incidents that caused physical damage to U.S. property but no casualties.

The Syrian government must “immediately end its smear campaign of malicious and deceitful propaganda against Ambassador Ford,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a news briefing in Washington.

“The concern here is that the kinds of falsehoods that are being spread about Ambassador Ford could lead to violence against him, whether it’s by citizens, whether it’s by … thugs of one kind or another,” she said.

Amid the escalating spat, Imad Moustapha, Syria’s ambassador to the United States, was called home on Monday, said Roua Sharbaji, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Embassy said.

Nuland said Ford was brought home to “give him a little bit of a break” from a tense situation, as well as for consultations.

AMMAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it had pulled its ambassador out of Damascus because of threats to his safety in Syria, where protesters are trying to end 41 years of authoritarian rule by the Assad family.

Ambassador Robert Ford had angered the Syrian government by cultivating contacts with the 7-month-old grass-roots movement against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, leading to attacks on his embassy and residence, diplomats said.

The Western diplomats told Reuters Ford left Syria over the weekend following a series of incidents that caused physical damage to U.S. property but no casualties.

“Ambassador Robert Ford was brought back to Washington as a result of credible threats against his personal safety in Syria,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

“At this point, we can’t say when he will return to Syria. It will depend on our assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground.”

U.S. officials said they want Ford to return to Damascus and made clear they had no current intention of expelling the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, a step that would almost certainly preclude the U.S. envoy’s return.

One U.S. official said that the Assad government appeared to be trying to deflect attention from its effort to crush anti-government attention by incitement against Ford, who has been unusually forward in challenging the authorities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and North Korea will meet on Monday and Tuesday in Geneva, the U.S. State Department said, but analysts were skeptical wider talks on ending the North’s nuclear programs will resume any time soon.

The State Department stressed that it was looking for “seriousness of purpose” on the part of North Korea about curbing its nuclear ambitions and that it wanted Pyongyang to take steps to demonstrate this before any broader talks.

While State Department spokesman Mark Toner declined to lay these out, analysts cite three: improving North and South Korean relations; freezing North Korea’s nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, and a moratorium on its nuclear and long-range missile tests.

“This is a continuation of the exploratory meetings to determine if North Korea is prepared to fulfill its commitments under the 2005 joint statement of the six-party talks and its … international obligations as well as take concrete steps toward denuclearization,” Toner told reporters.

The United States and North Korea last held such talks in late July.

Under the September 2005 deal, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives to be provided by other parties in the so-called six-party talks — China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. That agreement has since unraveled.

In an interview with Russian state news agency Itar-Tass, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il repeated his readiness to return to stalled nuclear talks “without any preconditions” — a sign it will be difficult to get him to take steps before any eventual resumption of six-party talks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – International mediators will meet separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials on October 26 in Jerusalem to try to revive direct peace talks that ended more than a year ago, the United States said on Monday.

Instead of meeting face-to-face as the mediators originally sought, the Israelis and Palestinians will hold separate talks with the “Quartet” made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

Analysts said the fact the Quartet could not meet even its own goals — laid out in a September 23 statement that called for a “preparatory meeting between the parties” within a month — showed the extreme difficulty of reviving actual negotiations.

Despite making Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority, President Barack Obama has little to show for his efforts. His success at getting the parties back into direct talks in September 2010 collapsed within weeks and his special envoy for Middle East peace, George Mitchell, stepped down in May.

The Quartet has since taken a lead in the effort to resume negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that collapsed more than a year ago over the issue of Israeli construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The last round ended after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month limited moratorium on settlement construction, something Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had demanded to continue negotiations.

“The Quartet envoys will be meeting with the parties in Jerusalem on October 26 … with the aim to begin preparations and develop an agenda for proceeding in the negotiations,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran on Thursday it would face the toughest possible sanctions for an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, as officials eyed action against its central bank.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday accused Iran of fomenting instability but pledged a “measured response” over the alleged plot that has heightened tensions between OPEC’s two top oil producers.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said, on a visit to Austria, that the evidence showed “Iran is responsible” for the alleged plot and said Tehran had tried to “meddle” in the affairs of Arab states before.

In Washington, Obama told a news conference that the United States would not take any options off the table in dealing with Iran, a phrase U.S. officials regularly use towards Tehran that is diplomatic code for the possibility of military action.

“This is part of a pattern of dangerous and reckless behaviour by the Iranian government,” Obama said in his first public comments on the affair.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday said they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.

Iran called the accusations a fabrication designed to hurt its relations with its neighbours.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Time and money are running short for Hillary Clinton.

After surprising the world in 2009 when she signed up as secretary of state for her Democratic rival President Barack Obama, Clinton has repeatedly said she will stand aside after Obama’s term ends in January 2013, leaving her just 15 months to cement her legacy as America’s top diplomat.

But as the clock winds down, Clinton also faces one of the biggest domestic battles of her life: ensuring that U.S. spending on diplomacy and foreign aid survives the whirlwind of budget cuts swirling through Congress.

“We are engaged in a very challenging budget discussion with the Congress which will to some extent determine where our priorities are and what we do,” Clinton told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

“There are so many emerging actors who can influence events in ways that either advantage or disadvantage us nationally, or promote or undermine the values that we stand for. So we really have to have a broad comprehensive global presence at the very time when we’re having the money cut,” she said.

The sweeping view from Clinton’s suite of meeting rooms atop the gray-walled State Department complex includes enduring symbols of American power and prestige anchored by the spire of the Washington Monument.

But like that monument — closed to visitors after a rare earthquake in August — American power in the latter half of Clinton’s State Department tenure is looking shaky.