WASHINGTON–Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, is spending much of this week’s congressional break in the Middle East, where he and other lawmakers are visiting Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and other international hotspots.

In a call from the road (he found a decent phone line in Islamabad), Carnahan, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said, in a nutshell, that things are as bad as they seem. The Taliban and al-Qaida forces have found a “safe haven” into the mountainous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“The strong fear almost universally here is that it’s provided time and space for the insurgents to regroup and relaunch, not just into Afghanistan but potentially beyond,” Carnahan said. After the congressional delegation’s met with top leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Carnahan said it became clear that there are severe political and military limits to tackling the problem.

The U.S., he said, needs to focus more intensely on the region before things spiral even more. “We can help with better training of the Afghanistan military police,” Carnahan said. “They need more help with their drug interdiction efforts there to really get to the heart of what’s financing a large part of the terrorist [activity].”

The next stop for Carnahan and the five other lawmakers on the trip is India, although Carnahan said he could not  disclose their full itinerary for security reasons.