These factions confound conventional wisdom.

Rubio and Bush are cast in the press as pragmatic moderates; Cruz and Trump are seen as a right-wing ideologue and a bellicose barbarian. Yet in this clash, the median voter, folks who regard President Obama as a pragmatist, and those skeptical of George W. Bush’s foreign policy align more closely with Cruz and Trump than with Rubio and Bush.

That’s because Cruz and Trump have the better of this argument.

And yet, I cannot align comfortably with either man, even on the narrow issue of responding to ISIS, because although I agree that it is folly to fight Assad and ISIS at the same time, especially given the potential for catastrophic conflict with Russia, Cruz and Trump have taken other positions on this subject that no one should abide.

Cruz asserts that the United States should resort to “carpet bombing,” a euphemism for dropping explosives on vast tracts of foreign territory, indiscriminately destroying most everything including innocent civilians. And he inaccurately asserted that “Iran has declared war on us” as he called for regime change in that country, as if that is a viable option––and as if fighting Iran and ISIS at the same time makes any more sense than fighting Assad and ISIS at the same time. Meanwhile, Trump suggests that he would retaliate against the family members of terrorists, ban all Muslims from entering the United States, and register Muslim Americans.

Before Tuesday’s debate, I expected Ohio Governor John Kasich to offer a sensible alternative to both the Rubio/Bush camp and the Cruz/Trump faction. Instead, like the neocons, he declared that America should topple Syria’s dictator even as it tries to destroy ISIS; that it’s time for America to “punch Russia in the nose;” and that the U.S. ought to mount an invasion of Syria on the scale of the Persian Gulf War. Another candidate, Chris Christie, distinguished himself mostly in his desire for more intrusive domestic surveillance and civil-liberties abrogations.

Then there’s Paul, who stood out Tuesday in large part because he alone opposed almost all of the worst ideas championed by his rivals. In his most direct critique of the Rubio/Bush faction, he said:

There is often variations of evil on both sides of a war. What we have to decide is whether or not regime change is a good idea. It's what the neoconservatives have wanted. It's what the vast majority of those on the stage want. They still want regime change. They want it in Syria. They wanted it in Iraq. They wanted it in Libya. It has not worked. Out of regime change you get chaos. From the chaos you have seen repeatedly the rise of radical Islam. So we get this profession of, oh, my goodness, they want to do something about terrorism. And yet they're the problem, because they allow terrorism to arise out of that chaos.

He took direct aim at Donald Trump too.