Texas Sen. Cruz says that the United States still doesn't need to put boots on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) because its already being done effectively by the Kurdish army."I don’t believe right now we need American boots on the ground, and the reason is, we have boots on the ground already, with the Kurds," Cruz told George Stephanopoulos while appearing on "This Week" on ABC News Sunday."The Peshmerga are trained, effective fighters. They are close allies of us," the Texas Republican explained.Cruz is currently in Munich for a security conference where he says he met with Kurdish President Masoud Barzani."He made clear that the Peshmerga are ready to fight. They are fighting ISIS," he said.However, the Texas senator says that "it makes no sense" that the United States "is not providing military weapons effectively to the Kurds."Instead, they’re shuttling it all to Baghdad, and Baghdad is very slow in getting it to the Kurds," he explained."We need to arm the Kurds and we need to use the Peshmerga as boots on the ground," he contends. "They’re effective. They’re ready. They’re our close allies, and we need to use that in close coordination with overwhelming air power to take out ISIS."Cruz criticized what he called a "photo-op foreign policy" from the "Obama-Clinton-Kerry" administration, which he described as dropping "a bomb here or a missile there."He argues that what the United States needs is "a focused, direct military objective of taking out and destroying ISIS." ISIS shocked the world this week when it released a video showing the captured Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh being burned alive inside a steel cage.

In response, Jordan vowed to wipe out the terror group and began pounding ISIS with bombs within a couple of days. "ISIS is the face of evil and we need to behave with a seriousness appropriate to the threat they give us," Cruz said."And the first step should be to effectively arm the Peshmerga, use them as boots on the ground, and to use serious, overwhelming airpower," he added.