Sen. Ted Cruz

When both sides can defend themselves, you get a very different dynamic.

Let's go for a moment to why this is different from Iraq.

Because I want to be very clear.

I think Iraq was a serious mistake.

And if you rewind, go back to the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

So in that election, with 17 Republicans run, if you set aside Rand Paul, whose foreign policy views are kind of on one fringe, if you set Rand aside, of the 16 remaining candidates, there were two and only two who opposed the Iraq war.

Me and Donald Trump.

Everyone else thought the Iraq war was a good idea and defended it.

Now, why did I oppose the Iraq war?

Because I think it made America less safe.

What I have argued for is the central touchstone for every foreign policy decision, every military decision should be protecting the vital national security of the United States of America.

Saddam Hussein was a bad man.

He was a monster.

He was a tyrant.

He was murdering his own people.

But he was also killing terrorists.

We came in and we toppled Saddam Hussein and the terrorists took over and began killing Americans.

That didn't make us safer.

It made us less safe.

By the way, we did the exact same thing in Libya.