Sources: Administration to announce cut-off Wednesday of some aid to Egypt

Oct. 8, 2013: Cairo university students and members of the Muslim Brotherhood shout slogans against the military in front of Cairo University in Cairo. (Reuters)

U.S. and Arab sources confirm to Fox News that the Obama administration will make an announcement Wednesday night that it is cutting some of its aid to the Egyptian interim government.

Calls to key parties -- including the Egyptians themselves, Arab governments with whom the U.S. is allied, and select lawmakers on Capitol Hill -- are now underway.

One of the Arab leaders on one of those calls -- placed to him by National Security Adviser Susan Rice -- privately expressed disgust with the decision, telling confidantes afterward that is the third bad foreign policy decision by President Obama in a row. The others cited were the decision not to enforce his own "red line" with respect to the Assad regime's chemical weapons use; and the decision to launch direct talks with the Iranian president without first consulting pro-western Arab governments.

State Department officials have signaled already that not all U.S. aid to Egypt will be cut.

"Picking up and leaving town and walking away from this relationship wouldn't be good for the Egyptian people," spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Wednesday. "It wouldn't allow us to help in the way we think we can -- move Egypt towards a more democratic place."

Harf's comments strongly suggested that aid that helps advance core U.S. security objectives in the region will be spared the cuts.

"It's certainly on our shared security interest when we talk about counterterrorism, we talk about the Sinai, we talk about other shared security interests," she said. "It wouldn't help achieve those goals, either."