Yesterday, a tribal court in Pakistan handed down a 33-year prison term for treason to the doctor who helped the CIA locate Osama Bin Laden in a Pakistani army garrison town. The verdict drew widespread attention in Washington, but Congress and the State Department are having very different reactions.

After Capitol HIll collectively expressed considerable outrage, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted unanimously to cut $33 million from Pakistan’s foreign aid package — $1 million for each year of the sentence against the doctor, Shakeel Afridi. The reduction comes on top of the more than 50 percent of the aid a Senate panel cut earlier this week.

But the U.S. State Department didn’t ramp up its rhetoric so dramatically, maintaining its position that Afridi is detained without basis. A spokesperson said the U.S. will continue to let the Pakistani government know about that position. The softer line might reflect the possibility that Afridi’s verdict could easily be overturned.

Afridi, who ran a vaccination drive to collect data that the U.S. has credited with helping to find Bin Laden, was tried under a British colonial-era law that does not carry a death penalty, according to the New York Times. (The L.A. Times reported that “Afridi could have been given the death penalty.”) Having never approved of his detention, however, the U.S. still objected to the sentence. Asked about the issue yesterday, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:

We will – we continue to see no basis for Dr. Afridi to be held….

I think we’ve said that we don’t see any basis for what’s happened here, and so we will continue to make those representations to the Government of Pakistan.

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In February, Clinton said of Afridi: “His work on behalf of the effort to take down Bin Laden was in Pakistan’s interests as well as in America’s.” On CBS’s 60 Minutes in January, Panetta was more outspoken on the matter, calling actions against Afridi a “real mistake on their part” and crediting his help and making a case similar to Clinton’s:

This was an individual who in fact helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regards to this operation. He was not in any way treasonous towards Pakistan, he was not in any way doing anything that would have undermined Pakistan. As a matter of fact, Pakistan and the United States have a common cause here against terrorism.

A Pakistani lawyer speaking to CNN said it was likely the case could be overturned — something Nuland subtly alluded to in the briefing when she said the legal process wasn’t necessarily complete. The lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, said that the tribal court is not based in Abbottabad, the site of the bin Laden raid. He told CNN: “If this punishment is challenged by Dr. Afridi’s family in the Superior Court of Pakistan, there is a good possibility that the sentence will be turned around.“

House Republicans have passed their plan to avoid cuts to the defense budget. And the House Armed Services Committee, under Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon’s (R-CA) leadership, even boosted the budget by $8 billion. Neither Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey nor Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had requested the larger budget and new polling data shows that 65 percent of Americans think defense spending is already too high.

But while the military’s leadership and the American public are all opposed to the House Republicans’ ballooned defense budget — which includes a $5 billion missile defense project described by Dempsey as totally unnecessary — Armed Services Committee member Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) took to CNN this morning to pushback against the critics of the proposed budget. Forbes was asked about the polling data and responded:

Do [the American public] really want a reduction in capacity? I think when they hear the president and many people over in the Senate talking about the fact that they can have some of these cuts but still maintain the security of the United States I think any of us would want those reductions. But I think when you ask the American people ‘Do they really want to reduce the security of the United States of America?’ I think the answer comes back they don’t. They want to make sure that we’re maintaining and guaranteeing that security.

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But Forbes’ questions were answered yesterday. Panetta warned that ignoring the spending blueprint submitted by himself and Dempsey, as the Congressional Republicans have done, could actually hurt national security. He told reporters:

If members try to restore their favorite programs without regard to an overall strategy, the cuts will have to come from areas that could impact overall readiness. There is no free lunch here. Every dollar that is added will have to be offset by cuts in national security.

And the polling data showed that Americans are surprised by the size of discretionary defense spending when viewed alongside discretionary spending for other budget items. “This suggests that Americans generally underestimate the size of the defense budget and that when they receive balanced information about its size they are more likely to cut it to reduce the deficit,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation.

On a campaign call just ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy speech today, top foreign policy advisers to presumtive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney attacked the Obama administration’s Iran policy. While emphatically denying that the Romney campaign was threatening Iran with an attack, his advisers Dan Senor and Alex Wong admonished the administration for an honest discourse about what the potential consequences of an attack would be.

Asked by a reporter about Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s comments last week that the Obama administration-led U.N. sanctions program on Iran have been “effective,” the Romney advisers said:

DAN SENOR: (T)he administration has gone out of its way to convey that the military option is not serious. I mean, just look at the things Secretary [of Defense Leon] Panetta has said over the last year, whether it was at the Halifax conference, whether it was the Saban conference at Brookings… He went out of his way to talk about how disastrous military action against Iran would be for the United States, for the global economy, for the region. …

ALEX WONG: The administration has repeatedly talked down the military option and the effectiveness and the (inaudible) of the military option by the united states and Israel.

Listen to a clip of the call here:

Romney’s advisers offer, at best, misleading interpretations of Obama administration policies and statements; at worst, they make claims unsupported by the facts. For example, far from “project[ing] to the world that the military option against Iran is off the table,” Obama has said again and again that all options remain “on the table” to deal with a potential Iranian nuclear weapons program. A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, though U.S. and Israeli intelligence have not concluded that Iran has made a decision to pursue a weapon.

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Speaking before the House Armed Services Committee today, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta suggested that, while specific intelligence is incomplete, there might be something to rumors and accusations that China provided equipment for North Korea’s ballistic missile program in violation of U.N. sanctions. Media reports about the possibly Chinese-designed and -made mobile missile carrier come in the same week as a provocative — and ultimately failed — attempt by North Korea to launch a large rocket that portends development of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The Washington Times first raised the latest issue on Monday based on photographs from a parade in Pyongyang that appeared to show a mobile missile carrier that closely matched a Chinese design. On Tuesday, Foreign Policy reported that Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for more information about the allegations.

Today, Panetta was asked about the equipment by Turner and dodged on specifics. He did note, though, that “there is growing concern about, you know, the mobile capabilities that were on display in the parade recently in North Korea.” While he said the U.S. needed to get better intelligence, he added:

I’m sure there’s been some help coming from China. I don’t know, you know, the exact extent of that. I think we’d have to deal with it in another context in terms of the sensitivity of that information. But clearly there’s been assistance along those lines.

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If the allegations are true, they would constitute a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 which prohibits arms sales to North Korea. Asked about the report, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, “China is always against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The Nelson Report, a widely-read and well-sourced daily newsletter about Asian affairs by foreign affairs analyst Chris Nelson, reported that a source confirmed the truck was of Chinese origin:

Tonight, sources we absolutely rely on have come forward with information the carrier is new and cannot have appeared in [North Korea] without the explicit permission of [China]. As our source comments, with understatement: “The political implications of the appearance of Chinese missile transporters at the 15 April parade in Pyongyang are huge. ”

And the source’s source claims Beijing is fully aware of the implications of what it’s done, and that, the source argues, is why China approved stronger language than it’s ever before accepted, in Monday’s UNSC President’s statement.

Nelson comments that China’s embarrassment and quick accession to the Security Council’s unanimous but non-binding Presidential Statement that included a threat to ratchet up sanctions undermines criticisms of the Obama administration and the U.N. that the statement was all bark and no bite.

Public support for keeping U.S. forces in Afghanistan has fallen to a new low. A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds among the all important swing voters, over half, 59 percent, favor withdrawing from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Swing voters make up 23 percent of registered voters.

The numbers in favor of a withdrawal draw even higher among voters who say they will support President Obama’s re-election. Sixty-five percent of Obama supporters say they would favor a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan and Republican voters are also leaning towards removing U.S. troops with 48 percent of Mitt Romney supporters favoring a troop pullout as soon as possible. Only 46 percent of Romney supporters and 28 percentof Obama supporters reported they would favor keeping U.S. forces in Afghanistan until the security situation stabilizes.

Results from the April Pew poll reflected a record-low support for keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan as the U.S. public tires of the decade long war and recent Taliban attacks and U.S. atrocities against Afghan civilians. A new incident made headlines this week when photographs of U.S. soldiers posing with bodies of dead insurgents were published by the Los Angeles Times.

Overall, public opinion on the war has turned more negative in the past month. Since March, the percentage of poll respondents describing the U.S. military’s efforts in Afghanistan as going “very/fairly well” has dropped from 51 percent to 38 percent.

The U.S. public’s war weariness appears to be having an impact on the presidential campaigns where Mitt Romney, who had previously criticized Obama’s war policy as “misguided and naïve” for announcing plans to hand over primary combat responsibility to Afghan forces next year, has accepted, in large part, the White House’s troop drawdown strategy.

Romney now says that he wants to bring troops home as soon as possible but only when “our general think it’s O.K.” or “as soon as that mission in complete.” In an email to the New York Times, a Romney aide acknowledged that despite the campaign’s frequent criticisms of the White House’s 2014 target for a complete U.S. withdrawal, “Pending full review of conditions on the ground, Governor Romney would abide by the 2014 target for transitioning combat operations recommended by the military commanders.”

GOP presidential candidates and right-wing pundits are quick to push for military action against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. But a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that the American public is largely in support of Obama’s diplomacy-first strategy towards Tehran and, by a sizable margin, opposes military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The poll finds that while 84 percent of Americans believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon — a conclusion that neither U.S. intelligence nor the IAEA have yet made — 53 percent of poll respondents oppose bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities “to try to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.” Only 41 percent of respondents supported taking military action. When asked about Israel bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, respondents offered nearly identical responses with 51 percent opposing Israeli military action and 42 percent supporting.

Indeed the widespread opposition to military action appeared to be bolstered by a belief — held by 76 percent of respondents — that if Israel attacked Iran, it would “risk starting a larger war in the Middle East.” That opinion was shared by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week when she observed that a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran at this time “is not in anyone’s interest.”

Former Israeli Mossad Chief Meir Dagan gave voice to similar views last month when he warned that bombing Iran would “ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war” and that no military attack would be able to be able to permanently halt the Iranian nuclear project. The view that military action could only delay Iran’s nuclear program, and not stop it, is also shared by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and U.S. based military analysts.

While the Post’s poll shows general opposition to military action by the U.S. or Israel, the U.S. public support the sanctions regime and diplomacy pursued by the White House. Eighty-one-percent of respondents support “direct diplomacy talks between the United States and Iran to try to resolve the situation” and 64 percent think it’s a “better idea” to “see if economic sanctions against Iran work, even if that allows more time for is nuclear program to progress.”

Top U.S. officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear capabilities and warn that some of their activities may have a military dimension. But the IAEA, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree that Iran has yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon.

The Washington Post poll shows that Americans, by a large margin, are not yet ready to write-off diplomacy and non-military pressure to bring Iran to the neogotiating table. Last week, Panetta told the CBC that sanctions are proving effective at pressuring the Iranian government. “There is evidence that these sanctions are hurting, that it’s impacting on their economy, it’s impacting on their ability to govern themselves,” he said.

The new Post/ABC News poll results also match up with other recent polls on this issue. A poll released last month by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and the University of Maryland showed Americans exhibiting strong support for the U.S. and its partners “continuing to pursue negotiations with Iran” while an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on March 5 found that Americans prefer diplomacy over military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In upcoming talks between the P5+1 and Iran, U.S. officials are hoping to make progress in persuading Iran to suspend high-level uranium enrichment and close a nuclear facility near the city of Qoms. While rejecting any pre-conditions for talks, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi acknowledged that “we have our opinions and the P5+1 have theirs but we have to find common areas.”

Indeed, the international sanctions regime has increasingly squeezed Iran’s ability to engage in the global economy, according to U.S., European and Israeli sources, and given Iran growing incentives to engage the P5+1 in negotiations on its nuclear program. But in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak voiced misgivings:

It is clear that the depths of the sanctions is different for what we had in the past, and it has its impact both the closing of the SWIFT clearing system as well as the sanctions on the oil export and, of course, the coming negotiations that will probably encourage them to move.

But to tell the truth, we hope for the better, but I don’t believe that this amount of sanctions and pressure will bring the Iranian leadership to the conclusion that they have to stop their nuclear military program.

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But Barak’s pessimism isn’t shared by other Israeli government officials. Last week, Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, wrote that sanctions have been “much more effective than people think” and “hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with us.”

And Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the CBC last week, “there is evidence that these sanctions are hurting, that it’s impacting on their economy, it’s impacting on their ability to govern themselves.”

In his CNN interview, Barak said Iran is moving forward with a “nuclear military program” and also said Iran is “determined to reach nuclear military capability.” Top U.S. officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear capability and that some of their activities may have military dimensions. But the IAEA, and U.S. and Israeli Intelligence agree that Iran has “not made the decision to actually produce a nuclear weapon” as Panetta said last week.