Thierry Charlier / AFP - Getty Images file

US General John Allen looks on following a meeting of NATO Defense Ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels in this Oct. 10, 2012, file photo.

Gen. John Allen, caught up and later cleared in a scandal over emails with a Florida socialite, is likely to withdraw from consideration for the job of top NATO commander, three U.S. military officials have told NBC News.

A Pentagon investigation last month cleared Allen of wrongdoing, but U.S. military officials said that Allen does not want to drag his family through a nomination process in which the emails would almost certainly come up.

Allen has spoken with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta but he has not had the chance to meet with President Barack Obama to voice his concerns. A U.S. official said that Obama was aware of Allen’s feelings, and they would meet to discuss the nomination in the coming days.

“After 19 months in command in Afghanistan, and many before that spent away from home, Gen. Allen has been offered time to rest and reunite with his family before he turns his attention to his next assignment,” an official on Allen’s staff told NBC News.

Allen’s emails with the socialite, Jill Kelley, came to light during the investigation that ultimately brought down CIA director David Petraeus, who confessed to an extramarital affair with a separate woman.

Allen was previously the top American commander in Afghanistan. The White House had said after the Pentagon cleared him of wrongdoing that it would proceed with its nomination of Allen for supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe.

Kelley, who acted as a volunteer “social liaison” with military officials at MacDill Air Force Base, inadvertently triggered the investigation that led to Petraeus’ resignation by complaining to the FBI about anonymous emails she received.

FBI agents traced the allegedly threatening emails to Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ biographer.

Just last weekend, Allen took part in a handover ceremony and passed command of the Afghan mission to Gen. Joseph Dunford. Allen delivered an emotional speech aimed mostly at the Afghan people and stressed their role in taking over security by mid-year. He said that Afghan forces were defending their own people and allowing the government to serve its citizens.

 “This is victory,” Allen said, according to Reuters. “This is what winning looks like.”

Last fall, defense officials told NBC News that while there was no evidence Allen and Kelley had had an affair, there was enough “inappropriate language” in them that they warranted an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

Obama nominated Allen last October for the NATO post but put a hold on the nomination while the Pentagon conducted its investigation.

In announcing the nomination, the president praised Allen’s stewardship of the Afghan mission and said that under his command “we have made important progress towards our core goal of defeating al-Qaida and ensuring they can never return to a sovereign Afghanistan.”

It remained possible that the president could ask Allen to reconsider and go ahead with the nomination, but a U.S. defense official does not think that will happen.

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 13, 2013 1:28 PM EST

Mitt Romney set the stage for his impending foreign policy tour with a speech leveling sharp criticism of President Barack Obama, accusing his administration of having weakened America's standing on the international stage.

In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention, the presumptive Republican nominee accused the administration of leaking classified intelligence information for political reasons, and demanded that automatic defense cuts included in last summer's debt ceiling agreement be undone before taking effect in 2013.

The former Massachusetts governor's alternative, he said, would amount to an "American Century" in which the U.S. wouldn't flinch from a leading international role.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during the 113th National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on July 24 in Reno, Nevada.

"This is very simple: if you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your President. You have that President today," Romney told VFW members gathered in Reno, NV.

The speech was Romney's last official event in the U.S. before embarking on a key journey abroad intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials versus Obama. The trip will take Romney to the United Kingdom, as well as two other nations he name-checked in the speech, Israel and Poland.

Tuesday's speech, along with the trip, comes amid new data in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows Obama with a 10-point advantage over Romney on the question of which candidate would serve as a better commander-in-chief.

To that end, Romney sought to weaken Obama's standing on national security issues by highlighting the recent controversy over leaks of classified information - including details of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and covert subterfuge meant to slow Iran's nuclear progress - that many Republicans believe were orchestrated by the White House for political gain.

"This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field." Romney said."Whoever provided classified information to the media, seeking political advantage for the administration, must be exposed, dismissed, and punished.  The time for stonewalling is over."

Romney also attacked the planned cuts to the defense budget agreed to in a bipartisan debt deal as "wholesale reductions in the nation’s military capacity," and laid full blame at the president's feet. He also linked the cuts to care for veterans - the singular issue in which many in the crowd said they felt the greatest personal investment.

"Mark my words: These cuts would only weaken an already stretched VA system and our solemn commitment that every veteran receives care second to none," Romney said. "If I am president of the United States I will not let that happen."

Romney opposed the deal that congressional Republicans struck with the White House to raise the debt ceiling, though the former Massachusetts governor hasn't specified how else he would have structured such an agreement.

Romney name-dropped two nations that he will visit on his foreign tour, beginning tomorrow, as part of his attack on President Obama by accusing the president of "abandonment" in the case of Poland, which had planned missile defense sites pulled, and of "shabby treatment of one of our finest friends" in Obama's treatment of Israel.

Also notable was what Romney did not say in this major address. He never mentioned Al Qaeda and made only passing reference to Iraq. Two new policy details, flagged by aides to his campaign, were buried in a speech heavier on red rhetorical meat than policy details.

In a fact sheet released during the speech, the Romney campaign called for all future military aid to Egypt to be tied to that nation's upholding of a peace agreement with Israel, and future civilian aid would be linked to good governance measures.

On the prospect of a nuclear Iran, of which Romney said there is "no greater danger in the world today" he pledged yet again to employ "every means necessary to protect ourselves and the region" from the dangers of a nuclear Iran. The fact sheet released by the campaign made clear that this included making sure any negotiated agreement with Iran ascribe to the international "redline" on nuclear enrichment -- that no deal would be considered without Iran fully halting its enrichment activity.

Updated 4:45 p.m. - Mitt Romney re-emphasized Tuesday a shared goal with President Barack Obama, to transfer control of Afghanistan to that country’s security forces by the end of 2014.

Speaking Tuesday before the annual meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Romney noted his past criticism of the pace of the drawdown of U.S.-led security forces in Afghanistan, which was set to culminate in a handover of responsibility to Afghan forces in 2014.

But the presumptive Republican nominee said that it would be his own goal, as well, to complete a transition of power by 2014 – a stance that is difficult to distinguish from the president’s.

“As president, my goal in Afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014,” he said in Nevada.

Romney didn’t offer specifics when it comes to what that would mean for the precise level of U.S. forces that would remain in Afghanistan over the course of the transition, relying on his usual rhetoric about deferring to the judgment of commanders on the ground.

“I will evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders,” he said. “And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation."

In a separate fact sheet, the Republican’s campaign said that Romney, as president, would order an interagency review of the transition in Afghanistan during his first 100 days in office.

The Afghanistan announcement was just one part of a multifaceted speech outlining the presumptive Republican nominee’s foreign policy vision before he embarks on a tour of the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland meant to burnish his credentials as commander-in-chief. Still, Romney’s pronouncement today on Afghanistan would seem, if nothing else, to mark a significant departure in the rhetoric he’s used toward the situation in Afghanistan.

But readers might be forgiven for reading Romney's speech today as a more forgiving assessment of the way Obama has managed the war in Afghanistan. Obama first launched a surge in troops in Afghanistan, a move that was generally applauded by Republicans.

Before officially launching his current presidential bid, Romney said in a March 2010 interview with NPR: “I was pleased that the president made the decision to take action to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan. I think he made a couple of errors, even in doing so, that makes it a little more difficult - or potentially substantially more difficult for our troops to be successful there.”

He continued, “Number one, when the military came and said we need a minimum of 40,000 more troops, I would not have been inclined to cut that to 30,000. My inclination would be to give him at least 40 or maybe 50,000. Number two, I would not have announced the date we're going to start pulling people out. I think that makes it more difficult at the time you're just adding troops.”

But his decision to withdraw those troops by September of this year had turned into the centerpiece of Romney's criticism of Obama.

Romney said in his June 2, 2011 speech launching his current White House run that Obama was “wrong” to announce a date by which U.S. troops would withdraw from Afghanistan.

Aides to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that Romney's disagreement with Obama stems from the pace of the withdrawal of troops, particularly in 2012, during the height of the fighting season in Afghanistan. Romney, aides said, would have more closely heeded military leaders' guidance to keep surge troops there longer.

But Romney shares an end goal of having only a small level of troops in Afghanistan at the time of the handover, pending the success in standing up the Afghan government.

"The timetable, by the end of 2014, is the right timetable for us to be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan, other than a small footprint of support forces," he said at a Nov. 13, 2011 presidential debate.

The pace of withdrawal Romney would pursue as president is unclear, though; commanders haven't issued their recommendations, and Romney's words at a Jan. 2012 debate underscored just how uncertain the conditions that would warrant a drawdown can be.

But Romney otherwise said he opposed negotiations with the Taliban that would end the fighting in Afghanistan. The solution, he said at an NBC News debate on Jan. 23, 2012, was to defeat the Taliban outright – a strategy that would seem to open the door to a potentially interminable engagement in Afghanistan and, for that matter, Pakistan.

"By beating them," Romney said of his strategy to end the fighting in the region. "By standing behind our troops and making sure that we have transitioned to the Afghan military, a capacity for them to be successful in holding off the Taliban."

"Our mission there is to be able to turn Afghanistan and its sovereignty over to a military of Afghan descent -- Afghan people that can defend their sovereignty. And that is something which we can accomplish in the next couple of years," he added.

“U.S.-led coalition troops battling Afghan Taliban insurgents have killed Al Qaeda’s second-in-command in Afghanistan in an air strike in the country’s eastern province of Kunar, the coalition said Tuesday,” the L.A. Times writes.

Meanwhile, the New York Times takes an in-depth look at Obama’s war with al Qaeda. “Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding ‘kill list,’ poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation. ‘He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,’ said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. ‘His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.’” 

The L.A. Times: “Most Memorial Day messages from presidents involve the sort of solemn boilerplate remarks that barely break through the barbecue smoke and picnic chatter. On Monday, President Obama took a decidedly different tack: He noted the end of one war, promised the end of another and sought closure and healing for a third.”

“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Sunday urged a divided Congress to unite and avoid scheduled budget slashing that would bring total defense cuts to almost $1 trillion in the coming decade,” the Boston Globe writes.

Michelle Obama talks to USA Today’s Susan Page about her new book on the White House vegetable garden, “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens  Across America.” Will she ever run for office? "Absolutely not. It will not happen. … No chance at all."

Over the weekend, the first lady and daughters were in Atlantic City, N.J., for a Beyoncé concert.

President Barack Obama’s unannounced trip to Afghanistan served official purposes, allowing him to sign, on Afghan soil, an agreement spelling out U.S. involvement in the country following the withdrawal of NATO troops in 2014.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sign a strategic partnership agreement on May 1 at the Presidential Palace in Kabul.

There was no campaign build-up surrounding the trip, and the secrecy in which the mission was conducted – utilizing the cover of darkness to help shepherd Obama safely into the active war zone – hardly set it apart from Obama’s other trips to Afghanistan or Iraq.

But after the campaign between the Democratic incumbent and Republican foe Mitt Romney was subsumed by a spat over how much credit the president deserves for authorizing the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden a year ago to the day – and whether his Republican rival would have authorized the same mission – Tuesday’s trip by Obama sends an unmistakable message: there is only one commander in chief.

“No political objections. This is what commanders in chief are supposed to do," said Ari Fleischer,  the press secretary to President George W. Bush in 2001, when the al Qaeda attacks were launched against New York and Washington. "Just think how much better it could have been for the president if he never did the attack Romney ad."

"I think it's always good when the president goes to where young men and women are in harm's way," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN Tuesday afternoon.

The 2008 Republican presidential nominee has been an outspoken critic of the way Obama has used the bin Laden killing as a political chit. He said he couldn't accuse Obama of making the trip to Afghanistan for political purposes, and didn't view it as excessively celebratory.

Obama will address the nation this evening, live from Afghanistan, where his remarks will make reference to the bin Laden anniversary, according to pool reporters traveling with the president.

“I hardly think that you’ve seen any excessive celebration taking place here,” Obama said Monday at the White House in response to Republican criticism that the president’s campaign was too celebratory in marking the anniversary.

“I think for us to use that time for some reflection to give thanks to those who participated is entirely appropriate, and that's what’s been taking place,” Obama added.

The “Strategic Partnership Agreement” being signed Tuesday by Obama and Hamid Karzai, his Afghan counterpart, pledges continued U.S. support for Afghanistan after NATO’s mission there ends in 2014. It doesn’t speak to troop or funding levels, but rather looks to install a framework for an organized withdrawal of international forces in hopes of avoiding strife.

But it’s still difficult to divorce those very serious goals from the political implications of this visit; in truth, Obama’s trip to Afghanistan does reinforce his image as a commander in chief, even if that outcome were entirely unintended by the White House.

And the Romney campaign is mindful of that powerful imagery.

Their acute sense of these national security politics were on display Tuesday when Romney joined former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose legacy is forever tied to his handling of the bin Laden-directed attacks on lower Manhattan. They met at a firehouse that suffered particularly steep losses on Sept. 11, 2001, and hailed the president for authorizing the mission.

“I acknowledged a year ago that the president deserves credit for the decision he made, and I continue to believe that, and certainly would have taken that action myself,” said Romney, alongside Giuliani.

But the former Massachusetts governor didn’t entirely steer clear of challenging Obama’s foreign policy gravitas, either.

“I think I said the same thing then as … Joe Biden,” Romney said in reference to his own skepticism in 2007 of whether it was worth leveraging all of the resources in the U.S. to find bin Laden. “It was naive of the president to announce he would go into Pakistan. We always reserve the right to go anywhere to get Osama bin Laden.”

And today, in an official trip that squarely framed the president as America’s top military official, Obama went to that same corner of the world to mark the one-year anniversary of having done just that.

Key senators on Tuesday weighed what impact the weekend killings of civilians in Afghanistan should have on the pace of withdrawal of U.S. troops in that country.

A shooting spree that left 16 Afghan civilians dead – allegedly at the hands of an Army staff sergeant – has ratcheted up debate on Capitol Hill over whether to hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, predicted the Obama administration would continue with a steady drawdown of troops after 23,000 surge forces come home at the end of September.  He said events like the Quran burning and the shooting over the weekend do have an "emotional impact" on policy makers.

"I think there's now going to be a reinforcement for the argument that these reductions should continue," he told reporters.

Levin said the debate now within the Obama administration centers around whether to continue withdrawing troops at a steady rate after the surge forces exit in September, or to pause those withdrawals until mid-to-late 2013.

"I think many of the uniform leaders would like to stop there for a year or more and then have a steep decline to get to 2014, in fact some I think would prefer to wait until 2014 before there's any further reductions after the surge forces are removed,” he said.

All combat troops are set to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Levin and other top senators had their first opportunity to react to the slayings after returning from the weekend.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it should be up to the military leadership to determine what level of troops are needed. He warned about talk of withdrawal by Republican presidential candidates.

"If politicians start micromanaging the war like we did in Vietnam, we're going to have a disaster," Graham said.

Graham fiercely defended the U.S. commander on the ground in Afghanistan, General John Allen.

"If we speed up withdrawal because of political concerns in November, we undercut the general and we're gonna fail," he said.

Graham took a swipe at Newt Gingrich saying he was "very disappointed" by his reaction this weekend after the shooting. Gingrich told FOX News Sunday the U.S. was on a mission that might not be "doable".

"When Republican candidates for president and Republican politicians talk about beating the drumbeat of withdrawal, it makes it harder for the general to do his job," Graham said.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), said the U.S. needs to move very swiftly to contain the fallout from the shooting.

"I think the most important thing is for the military to move very, very rapidly, very transparently, very accountably to indict and to make clear the process by which this individual will be brought to justice. That process has to be something the Afghan people can follow and understand," he said. 

Kerry speculated the U.S. may need to tweak its presence on the ground and put Afghans in the lead of more missions.

"Right now it’s better to have Afghans more front and center," he said.

He cautioned against changing the plan for U.S. troop withdrawals based on this one incident.

"The president's on a pretty steep rate of withdrawal that the military has agreed to, but I think anything beyond that the military would push back very significantly. I think you have to look at the mission. The mission didn't change overnight just because some guy went out and regrettably created mayhem"

Kerry said he thought the Quran burning may have created more of an emotional impact across Afghanistan. He said that while the shooting by a U.S. solider was particularly tragic sadly Afghans have grown accustomed to war.

"The sort of day-to-day cost of war that they've lived with now for ten years and the fact that civilians have been killed in one instance or another,” he said. “This news is not quite as jarring under those circumstances as was the situation with the burring of the Quran."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was one Senator who said outright it was time to step up troop withdrawals.

"We got rid of the Taliban; we got rid of Osama bin Laden. Now we have an ally that disrespects us, who disparages us, who is openly confrontational to us," he said.

Would he speed up the timetable for withdrawal then?

"I think so," he said walking onto the Senate floor.

From NBC’s Kevin Hurd and Domenico Montanaro
Gen. David Petraeus touted “significant” security progress in Afghanistan in a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. He cautioned those gains are “fragile and reversible.”

“Moreover, it is clear that much difficult work lies ahead with our Afghan partners to solidify and expand our gains in the face of the expected Taliban spring offensive,” Petraeus said. But the “hard-fought” gains “have enabled the joint Afghan-NATO Transition Board to recommend the initiation this spring of transition to Afghan lead in several provinces.”

But an ABC News/Washington Post poll out today shows support for the near decade long war is dimming.

According to the poll, almost two-thirds – 64% -- say the war is not worth fight; 31% say it is. In addition, almost half -- 49% -- say they feel "strongly" that the war is not worth fighting. The opposition is a sharp change from early 2010, the last time a majority said the war was worth fighting.

In addition, about 73% said the U.S. should begin withdrawing a substantial amount of its combat forces from Afghanistan by the summer. But about 39% think that will actually happen.

In the January NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, just 12% said the war has gotten better over the last three months, 18% said it has gotten worse, and 64% said it has stayed the same. That compares to March 2010 when 25% said it has gotten better, 22% said it has gotten worse and about half said it has stayed the same.

And with 2012 right around the corner, the Washington Post makes this point: "His [the president] approach to the Afghan war has not won over the independents or liberal Democrats who propelled his campaign two years ago...." And: "[T]he results suggest that the war will be an awkward issue for the president as he looks for ways to end it."