Syrian refugees arrive at the Turkish border gate of Cilvegozu on Thursday, September 5. The U.N. refugee agency said the number of Syrians who have fled their war-ravaged country has risen to more than 2 million. 
Syrian refugees gather in the village of Salkin after crossing the Syrian-Turkish border on September 5. 
Children run past tents at a Syrian refugee camp in Yayladagi, Turkey, on September 3. 
A child pulls a suitcase as Syrian refugees arrive at the Cilvegozu crossing gate of Reyhanli in Turkey's Hatay province on Saturday, August 31. 
A family arrives from Syria at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on Friday, August 30. Currently, Jordan has 515,000 registered Syrian refugees. 
A Syrian girl stands behind a fence at Bulgaria's shelter near Lyubimets on August 28. More than 3,100 immigrants -- half of them Syrians -- have crossed into Bulgaria from neighboring Turkey this year, doubling their numbers compared with 2012 and and causing Bulgaria's few temporary accommodation facilities to overflow. 
A wounded Syrian child is treated at the Israeli Ziv hospital on Wednesday, August 28, in the northern town of Safed, Israel. About 140 wounded Syrians, who have been fighting across the border from Israel, have been treated in Israeli hospitals since the beginning of the Syrian Civil war. 
A Syrian-Kurdish man carries a mattress at sunset at the Quru Gusik refugee camp, east of Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on Tuesday, August 27. More than 50,000 Syrian refugees have crossed into Iraq's Kurdish region in less than two weeks as authorities rush to house them in more permanent camps. 
Syrian refugees listen to safety instructions at the Quru Gusik refugee camp on Saturday, August 24. 
Syrian refugees at the Zaatari refugee camp on Thursday, July 18, near the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the Jordanian-Syrian border. 
The expanse of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan as seen from an aerial view on July 18. The camp was opened on July 28, 2012, and is home to more than 130,000 refugees. 
Syrian refugee children walk in the Bab al-Salam refugee camp in Syria's northern city of Azaz on Monday, July 15. 
A boy walks with jugs of water on June 27 in a neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon, with a high concentration of Syrian refugees. Since January, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has more than tripled. 
Syrian refugees stand with their belongings on June 20, World Refugee Day, at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. 
A Syrian woman and child look out of a refugee camp window on June 20 in Alman, Lebanon, after fleeing their hometown in Idlib province, Syria. 
A child, whose family fled violence in Syria, stands at the Arsal refugee camp on June 14 in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. 
A woman uses a fence at the Domiz refugee camp near Kohuk, Iraq, to dry laundry on May 29. 
A boy carries a jug for water at the Maliber al-Salam refugee camp on April 28. The camp, located near the Turkish boarder, houses internally displaced Syrian families. 
A makeshift refugee camp is seen near Syria's border with Turkey. 
Row after row of temporary shelters fill the Maiber al-Salam refugee camp in Syria's Aleppo province, near the Turkish border on April 17. 
Refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria arrive February 18 at the Jordanian border. 
A Syrian girl stands at the entrance of a makeshift home near ruins in the ancient city of Serjilla in northwestern Syria on February 11. About half of Syria's refugees are children. 
More than 400,000 people have fled Syria this year to countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. The Zaatari refugee camp is in Jordan, near the Syrian border. 
A refugee collects apples and some bread February 10 at the Azaz refugee camp along the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkey has spent more than $600 million setting up 17 refugee camps, with more under construction. 
Clothes dry at the Qah refugee camp near the Turkish border on January 31. Many Syrians are forced to flee with few or no belongings. 
A man shows off his pet birds as new Syrian refugees arrive at the International Organization for Migration at the Zaatari refugee camp on January 30. 
A refugee child gets a haircut at a makeshift barbershop at the Azaz refugee camp on February 19. 
Syrian children gather around women washing in the Zaatari refugee camp on January 31. 
A refugee visits a clinic with his child at the Azaz refugee camp on February 10. 
Syrians put up tents at the Zaatari refugee camp on January 30. 
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees supplied tents in Al-Marj, in the eastern Lebanese Bekaa Valley. Some families have endured frigid weather in tent camps or struggle to pay for shelter. 
A Syrian girl looks through the window of a bus where she has lived with her family for the past eight months at a refugee camp in Bab al-Salam on the Syria-Turkey border on February 28. 
A Syrian jumps across the border between the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain and Ceylanpinar in Turkey's Sanliurfa province on November 10, 2012. 
A Syrian refugee waits November 27, 2012, at a hairdresser's shop, where refugees can also receive training, inside the Oncupinar camp in Kilis, southern Turkey. 
A Syrian boy attends school in the Turkish town of Kilis on December 17, 2012. 
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- Rep. Joe Heck: World, so far, lacks resolve to respond to al-Assad regime atrocities
- He says he's not convinced U.S. should strike. Action should only protect U.S. interests
- He says a strike could spark wider regional conflict, escalate U.S. involvement
- Heck: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya show our intervention can leave behind further abuses
Editor's note: Rep. Joe Heck, a Republican, represents Nevada's 3rd Congressional District in the House of Representatives. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also a physician.
(CNN) -- The most difficult decision a member of Congress will ever have to make is to commit our nation's armed forces to military action against an enemy. Having served with and cared for those brave men and women as a physician in the Army Reserve with three deployments including Iraq, this is not a decision I would arrive at lightly or without careful consideration of all the available facts.
There is no question that the horrific atrocities perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria are nothing short of appalling and deserve international condemnation. But there is a glaring lack of international resolve on what the response to such abominable acts should be.
A careful examination of the current situation and an understanding of our history in the region advise that the United States must proceed with caution before entering another Middle Eastern conflict.
First, I have concerns that a strike in Syria will only further muddle the administration's disjointed foreign policy approach to the region. It is no secret that the president has already used a patchwork strategy in dealing with the turmoil in the Middle East. The United States has implemented three entirely different approaches in Egypt, Libya and Syria.
The debate over a military strike in Syria cannot be a knee jerk reaction to the president's failed "new beginning" with the Arab world—including failures of diplomacy in Libya and Egypt. Rather, a strike on Syria must consider the greater strategic implications of military action and should be about one thing: the best strategic interests of the United States.
Second, the unintended consequences of even a "limited" military strike may outweigh any potential positive results. Some suggest that not acting could destabilize the region and further embolden bad actors such as North Korea or Iran; this ignores the fact that any military strike on Syria could spark a much wider regional conflict that would escalate our own involvement.
Rangel opposes military strikes on Syria 
McCain: This is a regional conflict 
Syrian archbishop: War won't help anyone There could be an additional attack against Syrian civilians, there could be retaliation against Israel, and Syrian refugees flooding into neighboring countries could tip the balance of the fragile political stability there. Right now, no matter how abhorrent the atrocities committed, the conflict is confined within the borders of Syria. Nobody knows for certain what will result from action or inaction.
Next, the administration has yet to clearly articulate the goals, objectives and potential costs of a military action in Syria. We know that the president wants to punish al-Assad, but I have never believed our military force should be used to deliver a shot across the bow unless we are willing to then sink the ship if the warning shot is unheeded.
But I don't believe that our military, or the American people, are ready to sink the ship. All that has been made clear is what we are not going to achieve -- regime change -- and what we could possibly achieve: a shifting of the momentum in the ground war against al-Assad's military.
We must be careful and quite clear with the types of actions we take as we use our military force in this fiscally strained environment, and at a time when we are drawing down the end-strength of our forces. Thus far, the specifics of a strike in Syria have not met this standard.
Finally, I do not believe the case has been made that there is a clear and imminent threat to our national security interests. Some say that projecting strength and showing a willingness to act against leaders who commit abuses are important enough reasons to strike Syria. A similar argument was used against Saddam Hussein, leading to the Gulf and Iraq Wars; a similar argument was used against the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan; a similar argument was used yet again against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.
While the circumstances that led to these interventions were all very different, the continued unrest that grips the countries involved shows that our ability to influence outcomes is finite and any power vacuum we may leave behind is likely to result in further violence and abuses. I believe it would be unwise to take on a situation that very likely could produce this same result.
Throughout history, no matter what action the United States has taken, we have seen that evil people will do evil things. As the situation evolves, we may see evidence that the Syrian armed forces are planning to attack our longstanding allies in the region or that there could be a major threat to global commerce. Such a situation would likely warrant a U.S. military strike. But that is not the situation we find ourselves in today.
In the end, if we are going to engage our military, there must be a clear threat to our national security interests at home and a clear strategy of what we are going to achieve. Anything less would disregard the lessons of recent history and further complicate the situation in Syria and the region while risking precious American blood and treasure.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Joe Heck.
