Cruz lays out hawkish foreign policy in Fort Mill

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s appearance in Fort Mill came at the end of an eventful week in U.S.-Iran relations.

On Tuesday, 10 U.S. sailors were detained and soon released after crossing into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf, producing images that led Cruz and other conservatives to castigate the Obama administration for weakness in dealing with the Islamic Republic.

Then, just before Saturday’s forum on national security at the Morningstar Fellowship Church, news broke that four Americans long held by Iran were being released. Around 2,000 people seated in the church gasped and burst into applause when the news was announced at the beginning of the forum.

“First, I want to say, ‘Praise God,’” Cruz said, specifically highlighting the case of Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor imprisoned in Iran for three and a half years.

“Believers across the world have been praying with him,” Cruz said, adding that he’d spoken with Abedini’s wife several times. “There are two little kids desperate for their daddy to come home.”

When the forum’s moderator, former ABC and CNN reporter Jeanne Meserve, asked if the nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama administration had led to the thawing of tensions with Iran, Cruz reiterated his distaste for the agreement,which relieves sanctions on Tehran and unfreezes around $150 billion worth of Iranian assets overseas.

He promised to tear up the agreement on the first day of his administration, and he said he worried even the agreement to release the prisoners would have “ugly” elements to it.

“The only way to deal with Iran is from strength. Weakness and appeasement don’t work, and that has been the Obama foreign policy,” Cruz said.

Instead, he promised to reimpose the sanctions the United States and five other world powers agreed to lift in a comprehensive agreement to end Iran’s nuclear program, which Cruz said “undermined the international consensus on sanctions.” What’s more, “I filed legislation ... to strengthen the sanctions to make them even more crippling.”

Later Saturday it was announced that international sanctions against Iran were being lifted in exchange for the verified disabling of much of its nuclear infrastructure.

Cruz spent much of the forum attacking Obama administration policy on Iran, the Islamic State and border security. When Meserve pushed Cruz on what he would do on the issues he cited, Cruz said, “First, we have to understand what we’re doing wrong now.”

Calling Obama’s an “anti-Israel” administration, Cruz said the president had undermined the confidence America’s Middle Eastern allies have that the U.S. can provide for their security.

“This administration has managed to unite Arabs and Jews in saying, ‘You want to give Iran nukes? Are you nuts?’”

Cruz, a former Texas solicitor general who prosecuted drug cases, had a quick comparison for the requirement that Iran get a 14-day notification before inspectors can visit its nuclear facilities.

“Imagine if South Carolina passed a law that said before law enforcement can execute a search warrant, they have to give a drug dealer 14 days’ advance notice.”

Turning to a potential general election opponent, Cruz said if Hillary Clinton is elected president, “Iran will get nuclear weapons.”

He also blamed the administration’s counterterrorism policies for making America less safe, citing the Boston marathon bombing, the mass shooting at Fort Hood, and December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.

The senator said he would pursue a strategy of pounding the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria with “overwhelming air power” but, like the president, would avoid sending in ground troops. Instead, he would directly arm Kurdish fighters that have led the charge against the Islamic State in some areas, while working with Arab allies who already make up part of the anti-ISIS coalition.

“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism. We will call it by its name,” Cruz said. “We will hunt them down and we will destroy them.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 8:45 PM with the headline "Cruz lays out hawkish foreign policy in Fort Mill."