Posted on 12/01/2015 3:16:41 PM PST by conservativejoy
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Rubio wanted a fight with Cruz over national security. Well, he's got one.
Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.
"Senator Rubio emphatically supported Hillary Clinton in toppling [Muammar] Qaddafi in Libya. I think that made no sense," Cruz told Bloomberg Politics in a wide-ranging and exclusive interview during a campaign swing through Iowa. He argued that the 2011 bombings that toppled the Libyan leader didn’t help the fight against terrorists. "Qaddafi was a bad man, he had a horrible human rights record. And yet, he had become a significant ally in fighting radical Islamic terrorism."
"The terrorist attack that occurred in Benghazi was a direct result of that massive foreign policy blunder," Cruz said during a drive eastward from a town-hall event near Iowa City to another in the town of Clinton.
"If you look at President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and for that matter some of the more aggressive Washington neo-cons, they have consistently mis-perceived the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and have advocated military adventurism that has had the effect of benefiting radical Islamic terrorists," he said.
On Syria, Cruz inveighed against Rubio and Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state, for supporting a no-fly zone and arming "the so-called moderate rebels." "I think none of that makes any sense. In my view, we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war," he said, arguing that Rubio and Clinton "are repeating the very same mistakes they made in Libya. They've demonstrated they've learned nothing."
Rand Paul's sitting in a dark room somewhere with a glass of bourbon wondering why no one cared about this attack on GOP hawks the previous 8,000 times he made it. He ran through the same points Cruz did against Rubio on TV just a few weeks ago. And now here's Cruz, gobbling up more of his libertarian support by throwing down with the Senate's most aggressive interventionists.
Cruz is right, of course, that Rubio supported regime change in Libya "full-throatedly." I haven't reviewed Rubio's positions systematically but after watching him for four and a half years, it sure seems like he's never met a regime-change idea he didn't like. On the other hand, what is Cruz's foreign policy? He told Bloomberg that it's simple as can be: If doing something would keep America safe, we should do it, and if it makes America more vulnerable, we shouldn't. That's appealing as a bit of Trump-ian barstool common sense but it's also a form of begging the question. The whole point of Rubio's beef with Cruz over the USA Freedom Act is that, in Rubio's view, limiting bulk collection of Americans' phone records makes America less safe from terror attacks. If the point is to keep the country safe, Cruz should be a surveillance maximalist like Rubio is. Same deal with intervention. Rubio would tell you that intervention in a chaotic situation abroad is usually the wiser play to guarantee America's safety since it gives you some control over events on the ground and it deters aggression by your enemies by reminding them that you're not afraid to use your military as needed. If we had left Saddam in place in 2003, maybe he and Iran would be in a nuclear arms race right now. Maybe he'd be working on ICBMs that would reach the east coast of the United States. Would that be a better outcome than ISIS?
Cruz's foreign policy vision has always seemed to me less like a vision than a political compromise. Since the beginning of his Senate career, knowing that he'd run for president eventually, he's tended to describe his approach in terms of what it isn't rather than what it is. In 2013 he framed his view as "somewhere in the middle" between John McCain and Rand Paul (as was Reagan's, Cruz was eager to claim). There's a lot of room between McCain and Paul on most FP issues, but then Cruz has always preferred strategic ambiguity in right-wing intramural battles. The point of the McCain/Paul (or Rubio/Paul) contrast is to signal to hawks and doves that they can each trust him not to go too far in the wrong direction towards nation-building or isolationism. Post-Iraq, it's risky to bet too heavily on either extreme in a Republican primary. It's a play for votes, in other words, more so than a specific philosophy designed to help voters predict how he'd respond as president to a particular foreign policy challenge. The reason he sounds so Paul-ish in attacking Rubio today is, I think, simply because he's eager to put Rubio back on defense on FP. Rubio accused him of weakening the country by backing the USA Freedom Act, now Cruz is giving him both barrels in reply by claiming that Rubio, in enabling Obama's and Hillary's disastrous intervention in Libya, weakened the country to the point where it left an ambassador vulnerable to murder. That's excellent politics given the prominence that Benghazi has on the right as a signature Hopenchange failure. And it's only possible because Cruz has taken care to show off his hawkish side on other high-profile FP issues, most notably his rally against the Iran deal in D.C. a few months ago. Calling him a weakling will be harder than it will be to call Paul one, which is one big reason why it seems silly for Rubio to come after him on foreign policy. It's hard to imagine Cruz being successfully framed as too dovish to be trusted, especially when Paul’s out there to provide him with an easy contrast.
But I don't know. If it bothers you to nominate someone whose foreign policy approach is largely ad hoc beyond "do what Reagan would do, whatever that might be," maybe you're uncomfortable with Cruz. My own feeling is that Cruz as president would err on the side of hawkishness simply because that's what American foreign policy in both parties tends to do (better to have voters see you as trying and failing in a foreign crisis than doing nothing) but would be less hawkish than a McCain-style aggressive interventionist like Rubio. That seems like a good place to be politically in a Republican primary four years after the troops left Iraq, but we'll see.
There are lots of dogs in Syria. Islamic State inIraq and Syria. Mad dogs and we are in a fight with them. I thought this was obvious but perhaps only a worse 9/11 will make Americans wake up to that.
I remember that within a week of Benghazi, FReepdom had generally concluded it was gun-running from Libya to Syrian radicals via Turkey.
The Administration was hoping to arm moderates, of whom there are 0.0 in Syria. So they had to know Al Nusra and proto-ISIS were receiving the weapons.
And McStain, Boner and McTurtle all have their fingerprints all over it. That’s why there’s never been a single question in Congress about WHY 35 CIA guys were in Benghazi. They knew exactly what horrible things they were doing. Americans wouldn’t stand for it. So the Uniparty are STILL HIDING BENGHAZI.
Cruz has always said that his objective was to destroy ISIS and any terrorist groups that might attack us. He has said that he would give that objective to the military generals and strategists so that they could develop a plan to complete that objective. Then he would make sure they had the resources to do it. Completely unlike Obama.
That was an excellent summary of the whole Benghazi blunder.
You’re effing A right we need to get involved in Syria. Were you sleeping in the late 90’s like everybody else? ISIS can not be permitted to establish an operative caliphate in Syria with access to wmd. Have you folks learned nothing?
So within a matter of two posts you have gone from not getting involved in Syria to getting involved in Syria.
I’m for destroying ISIS, not getting involved in Syria’s civil war.
Rubio supported toppling Gaddafi,
Toppling Gaddafi led to a vacuum in Libya,
The vacuum in Libya left our ambassador in Benghazi open to terrorist attacks..
Secondarily I agree that it is both A) Foolish to arm rebels in Syria who are allied to Al Qaeda, and that could be worse than Assad if he were toppled
B) To create a no flyzone in Syria is dangerous as that could put us in direct conflict with Russia (for what..?). Do we really want to risk WWIII for no real reason than interventionism (or the ego of the President-if that turns out be an interventionist like Rubio, Carson, Bush)?
“some of the more aggressive Washington neo-cons”
There are going to be some folks here on FR who are not comfortable with Cruz using the term “neo-con.”
Our embassy in Libya became official in May of 2006. It was horrible form to use our diplomatic immunity to run arms and support for seditious overthrow of the government there.
Momar Gaddafi was tortured, abused, and murdered as a prisoner of war. That’s a war crime and our Secretary of State took full credit, “WE came, WE saw, HE DIED! Ha ha ha!”
The CIA’s coordination with our embassy in Libya was confirmed at the Hillary Clinton hearing.
Wonder if Rubio still supports toppling Sadam ?
“If the point is to keep the country safe, Cruz should be a surveillance maximalist like Rubio is.”
No, the object is to keep Americans SAFE from enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. This would of course include oppressive, intrusive and dictatorial big government. Thank you Senator Cruz. CRUZ 2016
Well yeah. But ISIS is in Syria which necessarily means we get involved in Syria.
I do. You want to defend not toppling a dangerous dictator who was paying bounty for American and Israeli scalps while giving sanctuary to Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal and Ansar Al Islam? Or perhaps you are sanguine about jihadists scum who throw old American Jews in wheelchairs off the bow of ships. I imagine you were also fine with the ackack being fired at our planes on a daily basis. Then again perhaps you are just ignorant of the facts on the ground in Iraq.
Go ahead and send your children or grandchildren into Syria’s civil war if you want. My son already gave his life only for Obama to throw away everything so many sacrificed for.
I am very sorry about your son and as a brother grunt mourn him and those like him. But my family has served honorably and continuously since the civil war. So there is no reason to go there amigo.
You don’t seem to understand that taking on the mission of destroying ISIS involves getting involved in Syria. I am not sure why that is but it is. No nation building, no alliance with Assad but the destruction of ISIS on a daily basis primarily from the air. Of course we have to ally with some factions in Syria to gather Intel and have a presence on the ground. That is the real politik of the situation.
If you are unwilling to support that then you should just join Pat and advocate for fortress America and wait for the next attack in the lower 48.
I support destroying ISIS. Whatever that takes. Our mission is not to choose sides in Syria’s civil war, because ISIS is infiltrated on every front there.
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