Congress Has Opportunity To Address Growing Nat'l Security Threats At Home And Abroad

"The brutal terrorist attacks of October 7th poured gasoline on the flames of anti-Semitic hatred around the world.

Take the alarming reports this weekend out of Russia, a country with a long, troubled history of anti-Semitism. After weeks of pro-Hamas propaganda spewed from the Kremlin, an angry mob overran a provincial airport and surrounded a plane that had just arrived from Israel.

Chillingly, the mob went person by person, checking passports and asking if they were Muslim or Jew. A modern-day pogrom in southern Russia.

Vladimir Putin is usually quick to accuse other countries of imagined atrocities. But he's issued no such condemnation of Hamas for the very real savagery it inflicted on innocent Israelis.

In fact, as this latest despicable episode of anti-Semitism unfolded on Russian soil, Putin's regime welcomed a delegation of Hamas terrorists to the Kremlin.

The Russian government's policy is to demand that Israel agree to a ceasefire -- a de facto amnesty for the terrorist aggressors who slaughtered children in their homes a few weeks ago. In that regard, street protesters across the West have found common cause with a Russian dictator.

No major power has done more to turbocharge Iran's terrorist network in the Middle East than Putin's Russia. The Kremlin's intervention in Syria allowed Tehran to establish a massive corridor of resources to terrorist proxies like Hizballah and Hamas.

So it should surprise no one that Iran has happily provided Russia with kamikaze drones to fire at Ukrainian cities.

Russia, Iran, and China do not share an ideology. But they do share interests. They see themselves in conflict with the West, and especially with America.

Russia would love to see Iranian-backed terrorists in the Middle East weaken America and our allies.

Iran would love to see a Russian victory against Ukraine that divides the West and deepens its own defense cooperation with Moscow.

And China, for its part, would love to see America's resolve -- to stand with European and Israeli allies and re-establish actual deterrence against Russia and Iran -- crumble.

So at the risk of repeating myself: the threats facing America and our allies are serious, and they're intertwined.

If we ignore that fact, we do so at our own peril.

The Biden Administration's defense budget requests have systematically ignored these growing threats. The President's supplemental request to address multiple crises that have unfolded on his watch is a recognition of this failure.

So our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee now have a chance to provide critical resources that our military and defense industrial base need to keep pace with growing threats and support our partners.

Congress also has an opportunity to force the Administration to start treating our southern border like the sovereign, legal boundary that it is.

The southern border crisis is not a problem of insufficient resources. It is not the zero-sum alternative to deterring our adversaries overseas. It is the direct result of misguided policies that have incentivized record illegal migration.

It doesn't take tens of billions of dollars to fix this problem. It takes common sense.

And I would urge our Democratic colleagues to show some common sense by working with Republicans to stop the border crisis, rebuild American military strength, and stand with our friends in Ukraine, Israel, and Asia."

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