Ted Cruz Quotes

We need to use overwhelming air power. We need to be arming the Kurds. We need to be fighting and killing ISIS where they are.

Using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS. To put things in perspective, in the first Persian Gulf War, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet bombed them for 36 days, saturation bombing, after which our troops went in and in a day and a half mopped up what was left of the Iraqi army.

Quote A: I don’t think we need boots on the ground I don’t think that is an option worth consideration. Quote B: This idea that we’ll never have any boots on the ground to defeat them [ISIS] in Syria is fantasy.

Any candidate who thinks that we only need to attack ISIS from the sky, without regard to where they flourish and why, shares President Obama's view that Iran is our partner in peace.

If the U.S. wants to destroy ISIS, it can destroy ISIS. We won't end terrorism around the world. But we can destroy ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Prominent generals are telling us that. Prominent national-security strategists are telling us that. So let's do it.

We need to provide support to those that are fighting ISIS. And we can provide that support: logistically, training, intelligence, air cover. There are many things we have already accomplished successfully. But the notion of sending in rotational troops, as we saw in Iraq in the past, and in Afghanistan, I think we have learned our lesson.

I'm afraid you're gonna have to see more American military involvement in order to keep ISIS from spreading even further.

I think Donald Trump believes in defeating ISIS, resolving issues in the Middle East.

I have already said that I find the coalition air strikes to be insufficient. A ground intervention will be necessary to overcome Daesh.

In my view, airstrikes without an effective ground force are unlikely to make any meaningful contribution to defeating Isis.

If your goal is to destroy ISIS, there needs to be a ground force. It could be American or foreign.

We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we're not putting ground troops into Syria. We're going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops.

We're making progress. Our military is assisting in Iraq. And we're hoping that within the year we'll be able to push ISIS out of Iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in Syria.

Like Vietnam, Afghanistan was never about troop levels; it is about how troops are utilized.

When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.

You can't hold the armed forces responsible for being firm with terrorists. We need to be firm with terrorists.

We can make sacrifices to fight Islamic State, but the international coalition has to support us.

I don't think the British or American governments really want to fight the Islamic State. They just want to look as if they are doing so.

Europe, the U.S., and their allies can defeat the terrorists of Islamic State, or ISIS. The first step is making the decision to fight back. The next step is understanding that drones and standoff missiles will not be enough. Ground troops will be needed.

Responding to terrorism inevitably implies military consequences. This may shock some people, but these groups must also be dealt with on a military footing. I won't use the word 'combat' to avoid being painted as a crusader.

The United States should have stepped up and destroyed ISIS at its origins rather than wait until ISIS grew their capabilities and influence.

Fomenting an ongoing political crisis is actually one of ISIS's objectives; it distracts policymakers' attention from terrorists inside Iraq; and it draws critical Iraqi security forces and law enforcement away from the front lines of the battle against ISIS.

In my day, we had mastered high-intensity conflict, which is why I think we were so successful in Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and then eventually the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Bombs are not going to fix ISIS.

We're in a war with ISIS and we need a leader who understands exactly what that means.