Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly has returned from a trip to the Middle East. He met recently with government officials in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iraq, and Spain, as part of his work on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Donnelly serves as Ranking Member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which oversees U.S. missile defense programs, as well as U.S.-Israel collaborative missile defense programs. They are all hoping Congress will stand firm on sanctions against Iran. “We have an ongoing and enduring structure in place that can meet citizen’s needs that doesn’t get involved in sectarian face-offs where the government won’t help the Sunnis, the Sunnies won’t help the government and in effect it starts to fall apart again.” Donelly says, “We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen again. We have an obligation to the men and women who served our country, who served in Iraq who never came home to Indiana from Iraq, to honor their sacrifice and to make sure this sticks and because of the critical and important nature to our own safety.” Donnelly says the next challenge will be improving relationships between the Iraqi government and regional leaders to help ensure a group like ISIS can’t regain control in the future.