Cruz’s stance quickly drew fire from both neoconservative quarters and advocates for a more aggressive American role to end the Syrian conflict.

“Supposed ‘realists’ constantly say the U.S. must stop pursuing policies of ‘regime change’ and accept the ‘devil we know.’ … The Syrian President now controls significantly less than half of the country, even with direct Russian and Iranian support,” Evan Barrett, a political adviser to the Coalition for a Democratic Syria, said.

“I think it strikes people here [at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s conference] as very puzzling that someone would want to keep the Assad regime, which has armed and funded Hezbollah, and which has hosted Hamas and is one of the worst state-sponsors of terrorism in the world, that Ted Cruz would want to keep him in power,” said Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel…

But Cruz’s stance is atypical, because he pairs a single-minded devotion to a no-daylight relationship between Israel and the U.S. with a less dogmatic stance on other foreign policy issues.