Like McCain and Graham, Cruz also wants to kill first and ask questions later. He’s suggested that America “bomb [ISIS] back to the Stone Age.” (The quote echoes General Curtis LeMay’s advice during Vietnam; that turned out well.) At this week’s hearing, Cruz demanded not merely that the U.S. “destroy ISIS—not degrade them.” He also demanded that it do so “within 90 days.” When Dempsey said that wasn’t possible, Cruz issued a press release saying the general was wrong.

But while Cruz resembles McCain and Graham in hyping threats and dropping bombs, he morphs into Rand Paul when the subject turns to political engagement overseas. McCain and Graham want to train and arm the Free Syrian Army so that when America bombs ISIS, non-jihadist rebels seize their territory and eventually pressure Bashar al-Assad into a political settlement. Cruz doesn’t. When it comes to Syria’s “moderate” opposition, he’s doubtful that the United States “can tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

That may be true. But most commentators who share Cruz’s skepticism about arming the rebels are skeptical of a bombing campaign too, arguing that it won’t do much good on the ground. Cruz doesn’t care. He wants to pulverize Syria from the air without any effort at political change on the ground. America’s strategy against ISIS, he insists, should not be “laden with impractical contingencies, such as resolving the Syrian civil war.”

Cruz is equally indifferent to the politics of Iraq. McCain and Graham want to leverage America’s renewed military involvement there to create a government in Baghdad inclusive enough to lure Sunnis away from ISIS. Cruz thinks that’s a waste of time. In an interview with Sean Hannity, he mocked Dempsey for saying that to defeat ISIS “we need to see political reconciliation. We need to change the conditions on the ground so people are not susceptible to extremism.” Cruz was incredulous. “Look,” he told Hannity, “it’s not our job to be social workers in Iraq and put them all on expanded Medicaid.”

Like George W. Bush before them, McCain and Graham are militaristic optimists. They want America to bomb and arm its way toward a free, pro-American Middle East. Cruz is a militaristic pessimist. He mocks the Obama administration’s effort to foster reconciliation “between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad” because “the Sunnis and Shiites have been engaged in a sectarian civil war since 632.” Notably absent from his rhetoric is the Bush-like claim that Muslims harbor the same desire for liberty as everyone else. Instead of mentioning that most of ISIS’s victims have been fellow Muslims, Cruz frames America’s conflict in the language of religious war. “ISIS right now is the face of evil. They’re crucifying Christians, they’re persecuting Christians,” he told Hannity.

Notice the difference. When Sunnis kills Shiites, Cruz shrugs because there’s been a sectarian divide within Islam since 632. But when Muslims kills Christians—another conflict with a long history—Cruz readies the F-16s.