WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senator Lamar Alexander knows what political sniping is like, having once worn a flak jacket to a Senate luncheon. Now he and some other lawmakers are hoping Washington partisans can hold their fire long enough to reach a deficit-cutting deal.

Despite a generally black mood in the Capitol, senior lawmakers at the Reuters Washington Summit this week expressed belief a “super committee” agreement was still possible in a town where compromise has been a dirty word throughout budget battles much of this year.

The special, bipartisan deficit-cutting committee has until November 23 to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in savings. If it cannot, deep across-the-board spending cuts would hit domestic and military programs starting in 2013.

Alexander, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, said nearly half the chamber thinks “failure is not an option” for the deficit talks. Fellow Republican Senator Tom Coburn put it more sharply, saying, “The cowards in Washington ought to stand up and get some backbone” and “move off a position” if necessary to strike a deal.

Richard Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, admitted to being “more hopeful than some,” partly because of what he saw as a breakthrough move this week by some Republicans who embraced increases in tax revenues.

None of the three senators serves on the super committee, but each carries heft in the 100-member Senate.

With Republicans and Democrats on the panel struggling to find a way forward, most of the public focus has been on partisan bickering and the apparent gulf between the party positions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership agreement is being held up by Afghan demands for limits on “night raids” against insurgents and for a timeline for Afghans to assume control over detention centers, sources following the talks told Reuters.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week that the two nations had agreed on as much as 90 percent of the substance of the keystone deal. It is intended to provide a framework for the future U.S. role in Afghanistan as control over security is gradually transferred to the Afghans.

While U.S. officials had hoped to unveil the document for an international conference in Germany on December 5, disputes over controversial night raids on Afghan homes and the running of detention centers could delay it well beyond that date, congressional staff who follow the issue say.

“I think a more realistic expectation is now at NATO in Chicago,” one congressional aide said, asking not to be named, referring to a NATO summit planned for May 2012.

The sticking points are more evidence of strains in the U.S.-Afghan relationship as Western combat forces start leaving. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly criticized Western military tactics and said recently that Afghanistan would back neighboring Pakistan if it went to war with the United States.

Under an international agreement reached last year, local Afghan forces are to be in charge of security by the end of 2014, as Western forces withdraw. Thirty-three thousand of nearly 100,000 U.S. troops will leave by next September.

But the West will likely fund Afghanistan’s police and army for years to come. Clinton made clear the United States would continue playing a role in security.

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – U.S. civilian aid to Afghanistan has peaked, the State Department said in a new report, declaring the United States would spend less on development assistance there as it withdraws troops from the country.

“We have reached the high water mark of our civilian funding levels” for Afghanistan, the department said in a status report on civilian efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan that was sent to congressional offices and obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

U.S. economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan has fallen from $4.1 billion in 2010 to $2.5 billion this year, the report by the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said.

These amounts do not include tens of billions of dollars Washington has spent on training the Afghan army and police.

President Barack Obama and allied leaders committed last year to turning security in Afghanistan over to Afghan control by 2014. By the end of next year, Obama plans to pull out 33,000 troops that he deployed in surge aimed at turning around the flagging decade-old conflict.

The State Department report said the United States is now shifting from funding stabilization projects in Afghanistan to “long-term sustainable development at lower funding levels.”

It said future U.S. aid in Afghanistan would focus on economic growth, such as in agriculture and mining, as well as infrastructure, such as energy and water, and in educational and vocational development.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A congressional committee approved tougher sanctions on Iran on Wednesday, hitting out at Tehran’s central bank following an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

The bipartisan legislation has good prospects for clearing the House of Representatives in the near future. In the Senate, lawmakers in both parties are working on similar legislation, increasing the likelihood that some version will become law.

“I hope we can … have these bills on the president’s desk in time to hand the Iranian regime a nice holiday present,” said Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a sponsor of the House bill.

The legislation requires the U.S. president to impose sanctions on Iran’s central bank if he determines it is facilitating terrorism or the development of nuclear weapons, or supporting Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“I believe the central bank of Iran is not only engaging in those activities; I believe it is the ultimate engine of those activities,” said the author of the central bank provision, Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat.

The sanctions would effectively block from the U.S. economy any foreign bank involved in significant transactions with Iran’s central bank. The legislation was approved by the House panel on a voice vote.

It would extend and tighten existing U.S. sanctions on Iran’s energy and banking sectors that were approved by Congress last year as part of Washington’s efforts to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it had stopped funding UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters the United States had no choice but to halt funding because of U.S. laws passed in the 1990s, saying Washington would not make a planned $60 million transfer that was due in November.

“The United States … remains strongly committed to robust, multilateral engagement across the U.N. system. However, Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers long-standing legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO,” Nuland said.

Nuland also said the vote Monday by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member was “regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

The United States provides 22 percent of the funding of the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

That agency decided on Monday to give the Palestinians full membership, a vote that will boost their bid at the United Nations for recognition as a state.

UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have joined as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some U.S. lawmakers demanded an immediate cutoff of U.S. funds to UNESCO on Monday after the U.N. cultural agency voted to grant the Palestinians full membership.

The Obama administration said the UNESCO vote was a distraction from the quest for Middle East peace.

“Today’s vote distracts us from our shared goal of direct negotiations that result in a secure Israel and an independent Palestine living side by side in peace and security,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

The White House, in its initial response to the vote, did not address the question of whether U.S. funding for UNESCO would continue.

But Republicans in Congress said Washington had no choice under laws passed in the 1990s, and must now stop contributions to UNESCO. An important congressional Democrat, Representative Nita Lowey of New York, warned the U.N. cultural agency’s action would have “serious consequences.”

The United States provides 22 percent of the agency’s funding.

“Existing U.S. law mandates that we cut off funding to any U.N. body that approves such a request. The administration must stop trying to find ways not to fully implement this law, and instead cut off funding to UNESCO immediately,” said Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior lawmakers urged the Obama administration Saturday to insist Russia meet high standards in its bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), saying they worried about the impact on American jobs and businesses.

The Obama administration has said it is committed to helping Russia join the WTO this year. The Congress cannot stop Moscow’s entry, but it could refuse to lift restraints on U.S.-Russia trade that date back to the Cold War.

In a letter to Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, and three colleagues suggested the restraints, known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, could remain if Russia did not fix problems with its trade policies.

“A high standard (WTO) accession package will be essential to ensuring support for granting Russia permanent normal trade relations,” said the lawmakers who oversee trade legislation in Congress.

Senator Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, and Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on that committee, also signed the letter.

They said they worried about Russia’s protection of intellectual property rights; Russia’s commitment to duty-free access for information technology; market access to Russia for U.S. agricultural goods; and whether Russia’s auto investment policy would disadvantage U.S. auto companies.

“While we recognize that Russia has made progress in opening its economy since 1991, the accession should address the serious problems that remain,” they said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior U.S. lawmakers urged the Obama administration Saturday to insist Russia meet high standards in its bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), saying they worried about the impact on American jobs and businesses.

The Obama administration has said it is committed to helping Russia join the WTO this year. The U.S. Congress cannot stop Moscow’s entry, but it could refuse to lift restraints on U.S.-Russia trade that date back to the Cold War.

In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, and three colleagues suggested the restraints, known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, could remain if Russia did not fix problems with its trade policies.

“A high standard (WTO) accession package will be essential to ensuring support for granting Russia permanent normal trade relations,” said the lawmakers who oversee trade legislation in Congress.

Senator Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, and Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on that committee, also signed the letter.

They said they worried about Russia’s protection of intellectual property rights; Russia’s commitment to duty-free access for information technology; market access to Russia for U.S. agricultural goods; and whether Russia’s auto investment policy would disadvantage U.S. auto companies.

“While we recognise that Russia has made progress in opening its economy since 1991, the accession should address the serious problems that remain,” they said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Even as the United States begins to withdraw from Afghanistan, insurgents abetted by Pakistan pose the major threat to U.S.-led forces, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Security has improved in recent months and enemy attacks are down in Afghanistan compared to a year ago, the Pentagon said in a twice-annual report to the U.S. Congress.

NATO and Afghan forces largely “stunted” the Taliban’s spring and summer offensive, although the insurgency remains adaptive and resilient, with a “significant regenerative capacity,” the report said.

But attacks from across the eastern border were up because of the support the insurgency received from safe havens in Pakistan, it said.

“Safe havens in Pakistan remain the insurgency’s greatest enabler,” the report said. These havens have grown more “virulent” in recent months “and are the most significant risk” to NATO’s campaign, it said.

The report comes as President Barack Obama’s administration has begun pulling surge forces from Afghanistan — withdrawing 10,000 this year and the remaining 23,000 by the end of September 2012.

Critics of Obama’s plan fear it could undermine the progress surge troops have made and point to faltering security in attacks in Afghanistan’s volatile east, along the porous border with Pakistan.

WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) – The United States has invited Russia to use its own radars and other sensors to size up one or more U.S. missile-defense flight tests as part of a new push to persuade Moscow that the system poses it no threat, a Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

The idea is to let Russia measure for itself the performance of U.S. interceptor missiles being deployed in and around Europe in what Washington says is a layered shield against missiles that could be fired by countries like Iran.

“These are smaller missiles,” Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, told a forum hosted by the Atlantic Council. He referred to current and planned Standard Missile-3 interceptors built by Raytheon Co .

They would be ineffective as anti-missile interceptors against a country like Russia, whose strategic deterrent missiles are launched from deep inside its territory, he said. The SM-3 interceptor, to be based on land and at sea, “can’t reach that far.”

President Barack Obama pleased the Kremlin in 2009 by scrapping his predecessor’s plan for longer-range interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar installation in the Czech Republic, a move that helped to improve U.S.-Russian ties.

WRITTEN ASSURANCES

But Moscow says that Obama’s revised version, which includes participation by Romania, Poland, Turkey and Spain, could undermine Russia’s security if it becomes capable of neutralizing Russia’s nuclear deterrent and has warned of a new arms race if its concerns are not met.