Read Ted Cruz's own quotes on foreign policy, and you will see that he is no foreign interventionist:
"If you look at ... 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."
"In my view, we have no dog in the fight of the Syrian civil war."
"If ... the Washington neo-cons succeed in toppling Assad, Syria will be handed over to radical Islamic terrorists."
"we want to retreat from the world and be isolationist and leave everyone alone, or we've got to be these crazy neo-con invade-every-country-on-earth and send our kids to die in the Middle East. Most people I know don't agree with either one of those. They think both of those are nuts."
"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."
If you have any doubts about Cruz's non-interventionist foreign policy leanings, you should read
Ted Cruz Warns Against Military Adventurism; here's an excerpt:
Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday warned against the deployment of U.S. forces in the Middle East ... chastised those rushing to place American troops on the ground to fight the enemy.
"Some in the course of a political campaign have focused on the question of boots on the ground – American boots on the ground – as a talismanic demonstration of strength. That is getting the deployment of military force precisely backwards," the Texas senator said at The Heritage Foundation in Washington.... Cruz said the U.S. should instead utilize its overwhelming air advantage, arm Kurdish fighters and employ the power of the Jordanian and Egyptian militaries to battle the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
"This is not a game of Risk," Cruz said.... "The argument that Republicans had to, in principle, support what might've been a democratic uprising against [Moammar] Gadhafi but that the Obama administration somehow botched the job is revisionist history and poor revisionist history at that," Cruz said. ".... Similarly, Cruz said intervention in the Syrian civil war is not in America's best interests. While Rubio has said the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad is crucial to containing the spread of violent and radical groups, Cruz argued there's no good option on either side of the fight.... "Quite simply, we do not have a side in the Syrian civil war," he said, citing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as someone who holds his view.... Cruz has his eye on the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, which may be looking for a new vessel given that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has faded as a top-flight contender for the GOP nomination.
With respect to Trump's anti-interventionist foreign policy, don't take my word for it; here is what
political science professor Peter Beinart had to say:
The Republicans who support Trump ... are largely "Jacksonians" ... who ... Unlike GOP elites, they don’t see American hegemony as a virtue in and of itself. They don’t like spending money or sending troops abroad. They don’t see free trade, let alone mass immigration, as unambiguously good. They don’t believe that American security depends on democratizing far-off lands, something they suspect is impossible. And when there’s a crisis in some other part of the world, their first reaction is likely to be: Why can’t the countries over there handle it?...One such leader was Ronald Reagan... he had little patience for sending American troops into messy situations abroad. And when hundreds of American Marines died while serving as peacekeepers during Lebanon’s chaotic civil war, Reagan quickly brought the rest home. Another Jacksonian favorite was Joseph McCarthy, who told Americans that battling the Soviet Union did not require costly foreign deployments or complex international alliances. ... Trump is now a third. He’s distinguished himself from his establishment GOP rivals by opposing costly interventions in the greater Middle East. He’s said the wars in Iraq, Libya, and even Afghanistan were mistakes. He’s scorned democracy-promotion, saying he prefers dictators like Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad to the chaos that follows. And when Vladimir Putin began bombing Syrian rebels last month, Trump responded, “Let Russia take care of ISIS. How many places can we be?”
When you try to portray Trump and Cruz as foreign interventionists based on the nonsense about bombing ISIS, you are conflating their anti-terrorism rhetoric with foreign policy, which is decidedly a bait-and-switch (and I think you have to admit that).
Of the four main candidates in both parties, Clinton is -- by far -- the most interventionist.
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