--- title: Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama Has No Complete ISIS Strategy — Turkey Can Help description: Turkey's election offers an opportunity for partnership in the fight against terrorism canonical: https://time.com/3914387/sen-ted-cruz-turkey-isis/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-10T00:34:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:58:58.415Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama Has No Complete ISIS Strategy — Turkey Can Help og:description: Turkey's election offers an opportunity for partnership in the fight against terrorism og:url: https://time.com/3914387/sen-ted-cruz-turkey-isis/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt59ff3ba4dcc16c94/698853a355a85915dea8c676/ted-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and U.S. 2016 presidential candidate, pauses while speaking during the South Carolina Freedom Summit hosted by Citizens United and Congressman Jeff Duncan in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S., on May 9, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama Has No Complete ISIS Strategy — Turkey Can Help twitter:description: Turkey's election offers an opportunity for partnership in the fight against terrorism twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt59ff3ba4dcc16c94/698853a355a85915dea8c676/ted-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama Has No Complete ISIS Strategy — Turkey Can Help > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. 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Ted Cruz Jun 10, 2015 12:34 AM UTC  Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and U.S. 2016 presidential candidate, pauses while speaking during the South Carolina Freedom Summit hosted by Citizens United and Congressman Jeff Duncan in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S., on May 9, 2015. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas and U.S. 2016 presidential candidate, pauses while speaking during the South Carolina Freedom Summit hosted by Citizens United and Congressman Jeff Duncan in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S., on May 9, 2015. Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Sen. Ted Cruz](https://time.com/author/sen-ted-cruz/) ## Sen. Ted Cruz Jun 10, 2015 12:34 AM UTC In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the people of Turkey fired a warning shot against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). While it is true AKP received the largest number of votes and remains the most powerful political party in Turkey, it is also true that this is hardly the result the former prime minister and current President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted. In emulation of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, Mr. Erdogan has paid lip-service to his country’s democratic institutions by moving between executive positions, a cumbersome process he proposed to eliminate by amending the Constitution to consolidate power in the presidency he holds, had the voters given him sufficient support in the parliament. They did the opposite, reducing AKP’s seats by almost 10%, and raising the number of seats held by the Kurdish minority to a historic high of 80\. Rather than consolidating power, Mr. Erdogan will now have to share it or face the voters again in early elections. This is good news for Turkey, and it should be good news for the United States as well. Turkey has been a long-standing friend to our nation, and is an important NATO ally. But Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic, Islamist and anti-American policies, largely un-rebuked by the Obama administration, have threatened this relationship. Under his rule, Turkey has become a leader in Internet censorship and the persecution of journalists. Mr. Erdogan’s administration has been aggressively hostile to our ally Israel, further inflaming regional tensions. By withholding access to the NATO air base at Incirlik, Turkey has further jeopardized our already anemic campaign against the spread of ISIS along Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq. But now the people of Turkey have gone where the Obama administration has feared to tread, and signaled they want a new course, one that is more inclusive of minorities and, we can hope, more friendly to America. This election may thus represent something that has been in short supply in the Middle East—an opportunity for the United States. The president admitted Monday what has long been apparent to most observers, that we have no coherent strategy against ISIS. Now might be the moment to develop one, starting with exerting pressure on Turkey to take aggressive action against the ISIS fighters moving across its borders and to give us access to our air base at Incirlik so we can see how ISIS reacts to a serious, concerted air campaign. Mr. Erdogan remains in power for the moment, and it may be that he will never agree to these requests. But the United States should make them loud and clear because while their president may not listen, the Turkish people might be open to partnering with America against the vicious scourge of terrorism that threatens both our nations. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] If I remove the [ UNKNOWN ] area from the communication between the end user and actually the news producer or newspaper content producer. Then I can hear the truth. That was the initial idea why we started 140journos. My name is Engin Under and I'm one of the co- founders of 140journos. 140journos is Encounter media moments that we as three college students started three and a half years ago. It's actually our form of activism against the censored mainstream media environment in Turkey. [ MUSIC ] One day we woke up one morning where. 34 civilians in Turkey were bombarded by Turkish military jet planes. And we switched on our tv, we got a newspaper, there was nothing there. No news. But on Twitter, there was a storm about this. So we realized actually the news production and consumption had been changing And we said can't we do anything? Do we really need big cameras, fancy news terminology and some branded microphones? No, actually we did not. [ MUSIC ] We just had our smart phones. We took to the streets. We started making our news, the news that we wanted to consume. We started covering the minority rights. LGBT rights, whoever is on the street. They were trying to pass on something they really feel deeply. When we start creating our own network to communicate with each other. Because our belief was I will never hear the truth from mainstream media. When we are helping [ UNKNOWN ] a society. Understanding social media. Grasping social media as a safe communication place. P2P or from news organization to end user. What we do is To gather information, pool information from a network of newsmakers, filter this information, verify it, and give it back to the internet environment. I love this potential. I love this possibility, and I am thrilled to give this potential to random citizens on the street. [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3914387/sen-ted-cruz-turkey-isis/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3914387/sen-ted-cruz-turkey-isis/"},"headline":"Sen. 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