A Conversation on the Middle East featuring Senator Marco Rubio

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) returned from a fact-finding trip to Israel and Jordan as a member of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees to participate in a public conversation on Middle East issues with Institute executive director Robert Satloff at a luncheon event in Washington, DC, on February 27, 2013. They discussed policy challenges in the region -- preventing a nuclear Iran, hastening Assad's removal, containing the spillover from Syria's crisis, and the Obama administration's renewed efforts in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace -- as well as the importance of our strategic allies amid a still-uncertain environment two years after the Arab uprisings.

A leading voice in the Republican Party, Senator Rubio recently delivered the GOP response to President Obama's January 2013 State of the Union address. Elected to the Senate in 2010, he currently serves on the Commerce, Science, & Transportation and Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committees, in addition to Foreign Relations and Intelligence. Previously, he served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008.