By Conn Carroll
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, appeared to reject President Obama’s impending missile strike on Syria Monday, but also left open the door for possibly supporting some type of United States intervention in the conflict.
Cruz’ first foreign policy test
Without former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for President Bush’s Iraq war, it is highly likely that Obama would not be in the White House today. Foreign policy rarely dominates presidential primaries, but it can be decisive. Considering this recent history, many eyes in Washington were eager to see what Cruz has to say about Obama’s Syria policy.
Libertarian?
On Monday, Cruz told Fox News, “The United States Armed Forces doesn’t exist to be a policeman for the world and I certainly hope the reaction isn’t lobbing some cruise missiles in to disagree with Assad’s murderous actions.”
This statement would seem to put Cruz in the same libertarian camp as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., but then Cruz followed up by saying, “The focus should be the only justifiable reason for U.S. military forces to be engaged is to protect our national security and sadly, that has been the missing variable from this administration’s approach from the beginning as they allowed Assad to slaughter over 100,000 of his people.”
For intervention just last month
What does this statement mean? What types of intervention would Cruz support? Well, in June Cruz issued a press release on Obama’s Syria policy stating, “We need to be developing a clear, practical plan to go in, locate the weapons, secure or destroy them, and then get out. The United States should be firmly in the lead to make sure the job is done right.”
So not only does Cruz support intervening in Syria, he would go further than Obama, and put U.S. boots on the ground to destroy whatever chemical weapons are in the country, and then get out. That is not exactly a Paul/libertarian/non-interventionist foreign policy.
All Republicans agree on one thing
While there is clearly no unified Republican position on Syria, all Republicans do agree on one thing. Obama must first come to Congress for approval before he uses force. “Secretary Kerry and the president have said they want to go to the United Nations for approval,” Cruz told Fox News,”How about going to the United States Congress?”
