Texas on the Potomac

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The ten snarkiest quotes from Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech


Last night Texas Sen. Ted Cruz delivered a significant foreign policy speech at the Heritage Foundation _ the foundation’s 4th Annual Jesse Helms Lecture. During the speech, Cruz ripped President Obama’s moves on Syria, and praised Ronald Reagan, saying he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for “winning the Cold War without firing a shot.” The speech was delivered in vintage Cruz style, providing some sound bites to satisfy the reddest of red-meat eaters.

Here are ten of the boldest _ and snarkiest _ quotes from Cruz’s speech:

1. “You listen to President Obama, you listen to Secretary Kerry’s arguments for launching a military strike against Syria: they primarily derive from the need to defend an ‘international norm’ and to send a statement in defense of that international norm. Now, I am going to suggest to you that it is not the job of the men and women of our military to send statements about international norms. … A statement is fundamentally a press release. A statement is something that is quite welcome in a university faculty lounge. But it is not the appropriate focus of the U.S. military.”

2.  “It was not an accident that the nation of Iran released our hostages after 444 days the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. I am a big believer of peace through strength. Because of this administration’s ambiguous messages on Iran, I think we have increased the likelihood of military conflict with Iran because those messages can only have been taken by the Mullahs as encouragement that the United States, that the President, will be less than vigorous protecting our National Security.”

3. Samantha Power has written that the United States should be willing to give up “a pinch of sovereignty.” I will confess I am not persuaded. But that does explain the philosophy in Syria of “let’s go defend international norms rather than the United States of America.”

4. “Earlier this year, President Obama, right after he announced his policy to arm the Syrian rebels, he gave a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Actually, ironically enough, on the east side of the Brandenburg Gate.”

5. ” ‘The president lives in the world of make-believe where mistakes, even very big ones, have no consequences. Disasters are overtaking our nation without any real response from the White House. Who does not feel a growing sense of unease as our allies facing repeated instances of an amateurish and confused administration reluctantly conclude that America is unwilling or unable to fulfill its obligations as leader of the free world. Who does not feel rising alarm when the question in any discussion of foreign policy is no longer should we do something but instead, do we have the capacity to do anything?’ Now those words could have been uttered this week. But they were uttered in 1980 by Ronald Reagan, describing the Jimmy Carter Administration.”

6. “We should understand that you don’t deal with nations like Russia and China by embracing arm-in-arm and singing kumbaya.”

7. “Ronald Reagan … had the extraordinary courage to describe the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire.’ … And all of the intelligentsia, all of the Democrats, all of the media – although I repeat myself – all collectively said, ‘What an ignorant cowboy. What an ignorant, uneducated Philistine. Evil Empire? What could possibly be evil about gulags and murdering and torturing your citizens?’ ”

8. “We shouldn’t be for a moment naïve that Mr. Putin loves peace and the American way of life.”

9.  “Reagan’s explanation of his strategy on the Cold War. He said, ‘It’s very simple: We win, they lose.’ Oh, the Academy was horrified. ‘You can’t say such a thing! Winning is so stark. We much prefer détente,’  which I’m pretty sure is the French word for “surrender.”

10. “Our current president won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think for waking up in the morning and brushing his teeth.”


Categories: Barack Obama, Syria, Ted Cruz
Nora Lindtner

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