Cruz closer than Obama to the will of the people

David McCumber

Monday, Sept. 16, 2013 | 2:03 a.m.

When he was in Congress, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, was looked upon by many of his colleagues as somewhere between an iconoclast and, well, a kook.

Take his position on United States’ global military role.

He consistently advocated against intervention in other countries’ messes, against picking fights we didn’t need to pick.

Which, in the days after 9/11, made him exceedingly lonely and almost a curiosity — except to a growing number of voters, many of them younger, who rejected the entire premise of the traditional U.S. role as the world’s policeman.

He not only voted against the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, he consistently pushed for the reduction of our role in Afghanistan, declaring in 2010, “There really is nothing to for us to win. … Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country.”

Which made him lonelier still.

But little by little, his views on limiting U.S. foreign entanglements began to get traction within the Tea Party as they competed with the traditional hawkish GOP ideas of unreconstructed Cheneyites — like Sarah Palin, who never quite grasped, for instance, that Saddam Hussein really didn’t have a thing to do with al-Qaida or the war on terrorism.

His views began to make a lot of sense to some of the new Tea Party stars like Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and of course, Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — and a libertarian Tea Party darling from Texas named Ted Cruz, a freshman Republican senator.

Stunningly, the past two weeks have turned the politics of war upside down. A Democratic Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning president has advocated for military action against Syria. As a result, we learned quickly that, 12 years after the terrorist act that changed all of us forever, most Americans are utterly weary of war and opposed to anything that looks like it might lead to our involvement in one.

There has been speculation that many citizens might feel much differently about Obama’s request for authorization of force against Syria if we had not spent 4,000 lives in Iraq fighting a war that was authorized because of faulty intelligence.

True as that might be, it’s hardly helpful at this juncture.

Perhaps the biggest unintended consequence of Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorization for a strike against Syria is that the stay-out-of-foreign-wars wing of the Tea Party has suddenly been legitimized, taken from the margins of American political thought to the very center.

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz share the catbird seat. They were against intervention well before it became fashionable — on both sides of the aisle — to be so.

Thus, in the oddest juxtaposition of all, the president’s actions on Syria have hugely bolstered the credibility of two Republicans who aspire to succeed him.

Last week, Cruz declined to offer his reaction to Obama’s address to the nation, opting to save his comments for a more media-savvy setting, his delivery of the annual Jesse Helms Lecture at the Heritage Foundation.

There, he made crystal clear his feelings about Syria and Obama’s handling of it.

Cruz argued that the United States should not contemplate using military force unless its interests are directly threatened; unless it can act with moral clarity; and unless it is fighting to win.

He made the case that the Syria authorization sought by Obama violates all three principles.

“It is not the job of the men and women of the United States military to send statements,” Cruz said. “It is their job to stand and defend the United States.” It is also not their job, he said, to defend “international norms.”

Whether Americans picking a president would ever accept the total package that is Ted Cruz is certainly doubtful. Handed the GOP presidential nomination, he could very easily be the Barry Goldwater of this generation.

And how people will react if, as is entirely possible, the so-called Russian initiative comes to naught is also unclear. If Syria and Russia play a delaying game, Obama could certainly get his use-of-force authorization.

But on this issue, as it stands today, Ted Cruz is a lot closer to the American people than their president is.

David McCumber is a columnist for Hearst newspapers.