Rogers: Congress can take important steps now to shape America’s future

Mike Rogers, former U.S. Congressman for Michigan, recently published an op-ed piece in The Ripon Forum on how the current Congress can work to positively affect the security and certainty of America’s future.

“America’s position in the world is shifting beneath us,” Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, wrote. “Strategically speaking, we are ceding ground to the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and to terrorists. All of this has a negative impact on our future.”

Rogers currently is the host of a nationally syndicated talk show on Westwood One, honorary chairman of Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security, and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute.

“Congress can take some important steps this year to turn back this dangerous trend threatening America’s leadership role in the world,” he continued. 

A Republican, Rogers identified a number of specific areas in which Congress should act quickly to reshape America’s role in the rapidly changing global landscape, including an aggressive response to ISIS, intervention of the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran, and a strong stance against the actions of China and Russia.

“A good start would be an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) and renewal of the PATRIOT Act to defeat ISIS,” he wrote. “ISIS should be confronted with a unified military, diplomatic and legal strategy that does justice to the threat ISIS is: a terrorist organization with territory and an army hell-bent on our destruction.”

Rogers said that Congress also should reject the proposed nuclear deal with Iran “in order to prevent a highly destabilizing nuclear and conventional arms race in the Middle East.”

“As the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, I can only imagine the kind of trouble that Iran’s Quds Force would create for the United States and our allies with the security a nuclear umbrella provides,” he wrote. 

Rogers would like to see the U.S. take a stronger stance with China and Russia as well.

“The Chinese are pushing the U.S. and our allies out of the South China Sea, through which 40 percent of the world’s trade travels,” Rogers wrote. “Congress can push back on these and other Chinese aggressions through the appropriations and defense authorization process.”