Ted Cruz: Russia-US Tensions Increasing Over Weak Foreign Policy

The tensions between the United States and Russia are escalating because of the "weakness of the foreign policies" of President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Wednesday.

"Leading from behind, this is what it produces," Cruz told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program. "We have a reality that Vladimir Putin doesn't respect the president of the United States, but he considers him a laughingstock. That's profoundly dangerous for America and the world. We are seeing the chaos in Syria and the chaos in Iraq also a direct consequence of the failed foreign policy."

Putin is trying to become a dominant force once again in the Middle East, the Texas senator continued, and "because America is so weakened, it created the opportunity for them to do so."

"Unfortunately what we are seeing is our friends and allies are getting the message President Obama is not a reliable ally," said Cruz. "Our enemies are learning America can be trifled with and Putin is far more dangerous."

But Cruz said he does not believe the role of the United States, moving forward, should be to cooperate with Russia, as "no one in their right mind would believe Putin's assertion he's there to help go after the terrorists."

"Obama did but it's only because he's hopelessly naive," he said. "Putin is supporting Iran, and Iran is the leading [nation] in the state sponsor of terrorism."

And, he continued, Putin is bombing moderate rebels because he wants to boost Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, "who is a puppet for Iran, and that is not furthering U.S. interests."

Cruz also called for the nation to stop "engaging in the fiction" of trying to find moderate rebels and support them, or trying to bring Sunnis and Shiites.

"Instead, we should defend U.S. national security interests and do what works to defeat ISIS," said Cruz. "That would mean using overwhelming air power to target and destroy ISIS. But we ought to be arming the Kurds ... They are fighting the Peshmerga. Yet the Obama administration refuses to fund them because it wants to send the weapons to Baghdad and they are not using them to defeat the terrorists."

Meanwhile, he continued, Putin is playing to win.

"Putin is not a complicated man to understand," Cruz said. "He's essentially a KGB thug."

He said in his opinion, "the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. I think what he's trying to do is reassemble the old Soviet Union and expanding Russia's influence."

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