Arizona Senator Jeff Flake is on his way back to the U.S. after weekend stops in Israel and Afghanistan.

STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Flake was sworn in as the successor to Senator Jon Kyl earlier this month. His first foreign trip since taking office included accompanying several colleagues to meet with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The traveling party also stopped in Afghanistan. Flake says he agrees with the timetable for U.S. troops to be out of that country.

JEFF FLAKE: It’s the right time. The question that we have and the difficulty isn’t so much on the military side. It’s on the political side. President Karzai’s government—their writ—doesn’t go much beyond Kabul. And so that makes it more difficult for the military to operate.

GOLDSTEIN: Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Flake’s Senate colleague John McCain says U.S. withdrawal will hurt the region because Afghan forces aren’t ready to handle security on their own. Steve Goldstein, KJZZ News, Phoenix.