Returning from a congressional trip to France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, Deputy House Whip Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) is bringing back two clear messages from the U.S.’s Gulf allies. In an interview with the Bennington Banner, Welch emphasized that they support strong sanctions “to try and change Iranian behavior” and there is “broad apprehension in those countries about military action” and serious questions about whether a military strike could stop Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

Appearing on Fox News this afternoon, Welch pushed back against hawkish calls for military action against Iran:

I’d say three things. First, there’s widespread concern … that Iran is dangerous, that them having a nuclear weapon is extremely dangerous. … Two, there’s strong support for sanctions. But three, there’s great reservation and caution about when it comes to the question of using military force, with some apprehension about what that would unleash in the Middle East.

Welch went on to lay out a number of the regionally destabilizing steps that could follow an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities:

If you’re Qatar, where you’re fifty miles across the Strait of Hormuz, they feel they will be on the receiving end of any retaliatory response. Turkey, is very concerned about the loss of access to natural gas that heats their homes in the winter. The UAE, which is a strong U.S. ally, … fears what would happen to it with a response and what happens to the sea lanes and their ability to export oil.

Watch it:

Welch, who is a supporter of the Obama administration’s efforts to built a multilateral sanctions regime against Iran, expressed his concern that congressional efforts to tighten sanctions and push for the “military option” are unhelpful. “Frankly, I don’ think Congress is in a situation to micromanage. It turns into a political debate and one -upmanship,” he said.

Indeed Welch is not alone in identifying the potential dangers of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Former Israeli intelligence chief Meir Dagan referred to an Israeli attack on Iran as “the stupidest thing I have ever heard” and, last week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called on Israel to “work together” with the international community, adding to his comments back in November that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only briefly delay the country’s nuclear program.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — One of Newt Gingrich’s most prominent supporters in Congress, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), took sides in the Huckabee-led debate over foreign aid, and it wasn’t with the former House speaker.

Mike Huckabee spoke at a South Carolina luncheon yesterday and slammed Republicans’ calls to eliminate foreign aid, calling such a prospect “outrightly foolish” and “un-Christian.” Gingrich, who supports zeroing out foreign aid, spoke immediately following Huckabee, but did not address the former Arkansas governor’s criticisms.

Following the event, ThinkProgress spoke with Franks, who had listened to both speeches. The Arizona congressman said Huckabee’s message was “magnificent” and “right on.” When ThinkProgress noted that Gingrich was one of the Republicans who Huckabee targeted for wanting to eliminate foreign aid, Franks was reluctant to criticize his candidate of choice, saying simply, “I’m going to leave that right there”:

FRANKS: Scott, Mr. Huckabee articulates subjects like that in a way all of us wish we could. I thought he was magnificent. I’m considered one of the most conservative members of Congress and I don’t think I could have articulated my own perspective any better than that. He’s right on. I just think he’s right.

KEYES: Do you think that the Republican Party has kind of lost its way on the issue of foreign aid?

FRANKS: I think that they have to make the distinction between places where our engagement can further the cause of freedom and places where it furthers the cause of surrender. There is a difference, there is a distinction. [...]

KEYES: I was just curious to get your reaction because Speaker Gingrich is one of the folks who have called for zeroing out foreign aid which Huckabee was very critical of.

FRANKS: I’m going to leave that right there.

Listen to it:

Foreign aid accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, yet Republicans have regularly demagogued the issue when discussing how to eliminate the budget deficit. Gingrich is one of the worst offenders, declaring in a recent South Carolina debate that all current recipients of American aid “ought to start off at zero and say, explain to me why I should give you a penny.”

In 2008, African-American Muslim student Balayla Ahmad enrolled in Connecticut’s University of Bridgeport with hopes of becoming a chiropractor. Instead, she became of a victim of sexual harassment. Distressed by the repeated sexual advances and “graphic offensive comments” of a male student, Ahmad reported the harassment and “fears for her safety” to multiple teachers, who urged her to say nothing, and finally the university’s president and dean. The dean told Ahmad, “My hands are tied. What do you suggest I do?”

Rather than having her claims addressed, Ahmad received allegations of her own. Learning of her report, Ahmad’s harasser decided to falsely accuse her of terrorism to the FBI. And rather than fully investigate what was happening, the University of Bridgeport just expelled Ahmad altogether:

After reporting the sexual harassment in April 2009, Ahmad said she was approached by two university security directors who told her someone had made allegations against her and they threatened to call the FBI and have her arrested.

Later, two FBI agents knocked on Ahmad’s apartment door, questioned her and left a business card, according to the lawsuit. She said she learned that her harasser or his associates had fabricated a story falsely accusing her of being a terrorist in apparent retaliation for having made a sexual harassment complaint against him.

“Ahmad was racially profiled and discriminated against because of her race, color and ethnic identity as an African American Muslim and labeled a terrorist based on false accusations provided by the harasser and adopted without adequate investigation by the university,” the lawsuit states.

Ahmad asked that the university provide her with an off-site proctor for her exams, but she said the university told her in April 2009 that her sexual harassment complaint had been closed and that she was being referred to a disciplinary committee. In June, she said the university dismissed her.

Ahmad filed a lawsuit against the university last week for failing to investigate her claims, instead showing “deliberate indifference” to her plight. The lawsuit claims that the college even “recklessly disseminated false accusations by the harasser that they had good reason to believe were unreliable and threatened her with arrest by the FBI.”

Ahmad’s lawyer, Bradford Conover noted that because Ahmad regularly wears the hijab, she was easily targeted for her religion. “[B]ecause of that, she ended up getting targeted based on some reckless accusations against her,” Conover said. “They never investigated it. Had they done so, they would have discovered the accusations against her were false and she had been subject to sexual harassment.”

Yesterday on CNN, GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry refused to back down from his previous debate comments that Turkey is being run by “Islamic terrorists.” “Did you misspeak?” CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked Perry, “Are you ready to revise your comments?” “Not at all,” the Texas governor replied. Perry justified his stance, saying that the Turkish government “allow[s] for honor killings”:

PERRY: I said that if they are treating their citizens that way, that they approach that terminology. I mean, when you allow for honor killings, Wolf — I mean, I hope you’re not defending honor killings as an appropriate act in any country, much less a country that we send foreign aid to. And we do send foreign aid to that country. I think some $4 billion. That’s not just a drop in the bucket.

BLITZER: Four billion dollars in this fiscal year? Is that what you’re saying?

PERRY: No, $4 billion in the last few years, and I think $7 billion on the military side of things. But the fact is, if we send any money to a country — Wolf, let me ask you, are you sitting here and defending the act of honor killing?

Watch the clip:

No, of course Blitzer isn’t defending honor killings and neither is the Turkish government. The Christian Science Monitor reported last year that Turkey has indeed seen a sharp increase in so-called “honor” killings — a term that “refers to a family member or members killing a relative, usually a girl or young woman, whose behavior is judged to have tarnished the family honor.” But the Turkish government isn’t “allowing” this to happen. While some have argued that the government has not done enough to combat the problem, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it “a longstanding bleeding wound of the society.”

And Perry said that Turkey has received around $11 billion in aid “in the last few years.” In fact, the U.S. has granted nearly $21 million in military and security assistance to Turkey since 2009, making Perry’s $11 billion claim wildly off the mark. And as a recent Congressional Research Service report noted, Turkey has received approximately $14 billion since 1948, not in the last few years as Perry claimed.

But Perry’s overall point is that, as he said on Monday, Turkey should be kicked out of NATO and the U.S. should reevaluate its relationship with the Muslim majority Eurasian democracy. But the aforementioned CRS report suggests that this probably isn’t a good idea:

Arguably, Turkey is a more significant ally for the United States at present than during the Cold War. With several challenges to U.S. national security emanating from the greater Middle East, the United States has already shown that it seeks to use Turkey’s geographic location for its advantage, and it is likely that future U.S. regional interests will dictate a similar U.S. outlook.

“We absolutely and fundamentally disagree with [Perry's] assertion,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday, adding, “Rest assured that we believe that Turkey is a stalwart ally.”