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Republican Debate Highlights Foreign Policy Divisions Within Party

The New York Times hones in on the different foreign policy visions within the Republican Party after this week’s Republican presidential debate.  

“Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida talked about the need to keep America’s closest allies together in dealing with adversaries from Tehran to Moscow, and work with them to enforce the nuclear accord — even though both of them said they believed it was a bad deal for the United States.”  

“Arguing for a more forceful response were Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Ms. Fiorina made the case for more ships, a larger Army and restoring missile defenses to Poland… Mr. Cruz mocked Mr. Kasich for what he argued was naïveté about Iran’s intentions and promised to rip up the Iranian nuclear accord on his first days in office — though he said nothing about how that would free the Iranians to do the same and resume uranium enrichment.”  

“But the biggest promises of American muscle-flexing came, in the first debate of the evening, the so-called undercard, when Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina repeated his vow to send troops to take on the Islamic State — and keep them there for as long as it takes to defeat the militants.”

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