Ted Cruz Ping! If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
CRUZ or LOSE!
Posted on 04/30/2015 1:59:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Republican foreign policy debate usually gets described as a divide between Rand Paul and ... basically everyone else. But Ted Cruz wants to change that, positioning himself as a sort of "third way" between Paul's non-interventionism and Bush-style neoconservatism. Cruz's approach seems like it should be popular, but it also illustrates one of the central problems in his candidacy: there isn't really a natural Cruz constituency.
Cruz's position on the use of force is hawkish: he wants the US to be far more aggressive than the Obama administration has been when facing threats. But he's also skeptical of nation building and democracy promotion; he's less comfortable with campaigns to topple authoritarian regimes in places like Syria than some other members of his party. He broke his view down into three principles in a Tuesday Daily Caller interview:
1 Any intervention "should begin with a clearly stated objective at the outset. It should be directly tied to US national security."
2 "We should use overwhelming force to that objective. We should not have rules of engagement that tie the hands of our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines."
3 "Third, we should get the heck out ... It is not the job of the US military to engage in nation building to turn foreign countries into democratic utopias."
Basically, the US should hit its own enemies hard and not worry all that much about dealing with the consequences for the locals.
It's an argument finely calibrated to today's Republican party. Cruz's instinctive hawkishness fits with the base's mood, which has become increasingly enamored of American military interventions since the ISIS crisis began. However, there's also not a whole lot of public appetite for another massive investment of US lives and resources in another extended foreign war. Clearly opposing one, even when it's unlikely, is a safe way to differentiate yourself from more conventional neoconservatives.
You can see echoes of this in some prominent Republican foreign policy figures, like former UN Ambassador John Bolton (who Cruz says is one of three foreign policy figures he trusts most). In a smart column, the Washington Examiner's Phil Klein argues it's more likely to catch on in the GOP than Rand Paul's non-interventionism.
But Cruz's foreign policy position also reflects a central problem with his candidacy: his profound isolation inside the party.
There isn't really a major organized movement that likes Cruz's position. More conventional neoconservatives, like Marco Rubio, are vying for support from the vast bulk of the conservative foreign policy apparatus. Paul appeals to a dissident libertarian-conservative movement — one that has its own intellectual tradition and turned out in large numbers for his father, Congressman Ron Paul.
There isn't, by contrast, a natural home for Cruz's position. The fact that it might be base-friendly isn't enough: at this stage in the primary, it's more important to garner support from elites and institutions that are willing to work for you than to propose positions that poll well. Say what you will about Paul's libertarians being marginalized in the GOP, but at least they're an organized movement.
Cruz's ideas might be able to eventually shape the Republican foreign policy debate, as Klein suggests. But barring a Cruz victory in the primary, that'd probably take a concerted effort to push them on his part over the course of years. In the short term, he doesn't actually get a lot out of advocating for them.
As my great-grandfather Horatio Vernon Salter Storrs III used to say, when they attack like rabid, meth-addled homo tranny lobotomized epinephrine-tweaked chipmunks, you know you got a winner.
Ted Cruz Ping!
Especially given all the sectarianism and factionalism?
How good is our government at finding the right leadership and putting it into place?
How good are those foreign leaders at keeping the peace between factions? Or staying honest?
My comment was not clearly stated. What I meant was the right U.S. leadership.
Cruz’s strategy is not to shape his principles to win the most votes, it is to articulate such principles as to shape voters.
Well, there’s stupid, and then there’s Voxstupid.
- JP
But there is a "natural consituency" (whatever that is) for corrupt lesbian shrews and shadowy black marxist schmoozers?
Astroturf and Media Shills ping.
From your keyboard to God’s ears....
W gave Cruz a job; Jeb gave Hillary a medal.
Letting God sort them out isn't a joke, it's winning.
““there isn’t really a natural Cruz constituency””
we the people
10’S OF MILLIONS OF US YEARNING FOR SOMEONE TO VOTE
((F O R))
It's not about nation-building, though. Who's talking about that now? It has more to do with not letting ISIS or al-Qaeda or pro-Iranian forces take over the rubble and use it as a base for further attacks.
"No nation-building" is a hollow slogan nowadays. It's what politicians accuse their opponents of doing while they do pretty much the same thing themselves.
What are the alternatives? Either we find some native force to re-establish order (which involves something very like nation-building) or we do it ourselves with our own troops or allies from the region, or we hightail it back home and our intervention is accused of being a failure or futile or counter-productive.
I notice that Ted Cruz did vote against ground intervention in Syria, and that supports the writer's argument. But I'm not sure that he'd behave all that differently from Rubio or another possible president if he were elected. The difference between what politicians say when they're running for office and what they do when they get in is very familiar by now.
See if you can tell a difference between Cruz and most politicians.
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