For Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, these are times that try men’s souls.

“Intense” and “grave” are words that fall from his lips.

Monday morning, Fortenberry sat down around a table at his Lincoln office with representatives of the Nebraska Coalition for Peace.

Recently, he addressed the American Legion, the perceived polar opposite side of a deepening national divide.

A spike in e-mail and other constituent communication at Fortenberry’s office has been fueled in large part by Nebraskans troubled by the war in Iraq and opposed to President Bush’s decision to send more U.S. troops into the caldron.

Fortenberry described last Wednesday, when he and other members of Congress confronted both the hope and danger of the president’s new strategy, as the most difficult day of his young congressional career.

“It has been very intense,” he said Monday over a cup of coffee before returning to Washington.

“The decisions are very grave.”

The 1st District Republican congressman, just beginning his second term, believes the stakes could hardly be higher: the stability of the Middle East, peace, the future shape of the world.

The decisions rest chiefly in the president’s hands. But a congressman has the responsibility of oversight and casting votes on resources required to support policy, Fortenberry said, as well as attempting to influence policy and shape debate.

Fortenberry was one of 28 House members who sent a letter to Bush this month urging increased deployment of Iraqi troops “into the heart of the battle” in Baghdad to “fight for their own country.”

Although he has “not yet drawn the same conclusions” as Sen. Chuck Hagel, who views Bush’s new strategy as “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam,” Fortenberry said he believes Nebraska’s Republican senator has contributed to the debate.

“To the degree this form of public debate brings reconsideration of strategy is good,” Fortenberry said.

And Hagel brings “the credibility of his own heroic actions in Vietnam.”

Thus far, Fortenberry has been cautious about endorsing all aspects of the president’s revised plan, which dispatches 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

“I will continue to evaluate the strategy,” Fortenberry said.

What most Nebraskans are telling him, he said, is “tread prudently.”

Fortenberry has not bought into Hagel’s argument for a regional peace conference that includes Iran and Syria. But channels of communication should remain open, he said.

It’s important to “not appear to be a supplicant to Iran,” recognizing that nation’s aggressive influence in the Mideast and nuclear ambitions, Fortenberry said.

“But we should be open to communications with any country that shows a desire for stabilization and peace.”

Success of the president’s new plan rests squarely with the Iraqis, specifically with the government of  Nouri al-Maliki, Fortenberry said.

“Iraqi responsibility is the centerpiece,” he said, and “we will know rather quickly” whether al-Maliki is willing to take on radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia as the government seeks to quell sectarian violence.

Success, Fortenberry said, will be measured in terms of a decrease in U.S. casualties, stabilization in Iraq and the potential for “a faster drawdown” of U.S troops.

Stuck in Fortenberry’s mind is an odd image when al-Maliki addressed a joint session of Congress last summer.

“It was a very resolute talk. But there was an awkward time while he was distracted by a fly buzzing around his head. For me, it was a very powerful metaphor of the disorder he faces.”

Reach Don Walton at 473-7248 or at dwalton@journalstar.com.