February 19 – Recent events in the Middle East reflect the region’s growing struggles and its continued significance to global security. Last week’s election in Israel was a virtual tie and this inconclusive result has thrown the government into uncertainty. On Saturday, the king of Saudi Arabia shook up his government by naming the first female minister to sit in the Saudi cabinet and replacing some extreme government ideologues with less radical Islamic leaders. 

In an alarming turn, Pakistan effectively conceded an area in its northwest region to the Taliban on Monday by agreeing to impose Sharia religious law on its residents. The truce suspends an effort by the Pakistani government to fight the insurgents and creates a Taliban sanctuary. 

Since the terrorist attacks on our country on 9/11, I have taken an active interest in the Middle East and it continues to be an essential front for global security challenges. During the President’s Day Work Period, I traveled to Jordan with several of my colleagues, including U.S. Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ill.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), who head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.), to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan, a close U.S. ally, and top policy experts from the region. 

This bi-partisan, bi-cameral meeting was one of the most instructive, timely and beneficial sessions that I have participated in during my 14 years in Congress. These complex global security issues affect the people we represent and the great challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan determine not only the security of the entire world, but also our economic future. 

We are truly in the middle of a global recession that has been dramatically affected by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our brave troops have been spread thin through these long and difficult struggles. But the geopolitical situation in Pakistan is so fragile that the biggest security challenge of our generation may be in the mountainous region that lies between Afghanistan and Pakistan known as the federally authorized tribal area (FATA). 

As a Member of the 111th Congress, my first priority is to help lead our nation toward security and prosperity at this time of great concern and trepidation. The reality of the world we operate in today is that our nation must do a better job of deciding where and how we intervene in the world, outlining our objectives in each case with a clear understanding of how success will be defined and measured, what it will take to succeed and what is required to exit. 

Many Members of Congress spent the week selling the benefits, or lack thereof, in the recently enacted “stimulus bill” that passed Congress on a very sharp – near total – partisan divide. The temptation for many in Washington is to think that if our nation borrows enough money and spends it on social programs that we will somehow recover economically. 

Along the path to security, prudence would call for fiscal responsibility at home so that the greatest nation in history will remain strong enough economically to lead the world out of this downturn with attention to freedom, human rights, global security and our national sovereignty.