Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is making no bones about his views on foreign policy. Last week, it was a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Russia. Yesterday, he spoke on the Senate floor about the president’s foreign policy, such as it is.
The remarks are noteworthy on a few counts. First, while the language may be different, the policies are very similar to those of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with whom Cruz previously tangled. Moreover, they aren’t materially different from many hawkish Democrats’ views; the difference is that Cruz is not inhibited by party affiliation. Second, Cruz is adopting a perspective that could not be more different from the sentiments of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) with whom he has sometimes allied himself (e.g. on drones). Cruz, I think correctly, sees that strong foreign policy is also good politics on the right. Paul is often left of the president and Hillary Clinton; Cruz is going right. And, last, Cruz weaves a narrative to explain a number of discrete events as part of one syndrome that affects the president (and I would argue, the left more generally). In that, he is giving voice to the frustration and fears of those who see this president as frittering away U.S. prestige and making us less safe. (“I’d like to talk today about the contrast concerning foreign policy between the fantasy that was presented to the American people and the cold hard realities of the dangerous world in which we live, which is only getting more and more dangerous.”) He began with a blistering attack on Obama’s counter-reality on Syria. He said, “On Syria, in the State of the Union, the president claimed , ‘American diplomacy backed by the threat of force is why Syria’s chemical weapons are being eliminated, and we will continue to work ’
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