Cruz: U.S. Shouldn’t Get Distracted From ISIS By ‘Side Issues’ Like Civil Wars

The United States shouldn’t get distracted from the threat of ISIS by “side issues” like the deep-rooted civil wars in Iraq and Syria, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Wednesday evening.

Cruz appeared on CNN’s “The Situation Room” before President Barack Obama delivered a primetime speech that delineated a strategy for combating militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

“In my view, we should not get distracted by side issues that the President has suggested,” he said. “Such as I hope we don’t hear him say that defending our national security interest and preventing ISIS from attacking us is dependent on resolving the civil war in Syria. I hope we don’t hear tonight, as he has suggested before, that it’s dependent upon seeing reconciliation in Iraq between the Sunnis and Shiites. That is a sectarian civil war that has waged since 632 A.D.”

Obama did not hang the strategy he outlined Wednesday night on the formation of a coalition government in Iraq, and he made only a brief reference to Syria’s political strife. He did stress the need for the Iraqi government to accommodate the country’s various factions in a statement addressing the burgeoning ISIS threat earlier this summer, however. Without that accommodation, Obama said at the time, U.S. military action would not be able to ensure long-term stability in Iraq.

Cruz had also penned a CNN op-ed Wednesday that laid out three steps he believes should be taken to combat ISIS. The Texas senator argued against formulating a strategy to combat ISIS around what he called the “impractical contingencies” of “resolving the Syrian civil war, reaching political reconciliation in Iraq or achieving ‘consensus’ in the international community.”

“While we all wish the Iraqis success in their most recent attempt to form a government, it is the height of hubris and ignorance to make American national security contingent on the resolution of a 1,500-year-old religious conflict,” he wrote.