Ted Cruz believes the Middle East was a safer place before the US helped to overthrow tyrants Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it has been reported.

The Texas senator, a Republican presidential candidate, said America should focus on its own security rather than toppling dictators abroad.

He said it was 'not even a close call' when asked whether the Middle East was more secure when Gaddafi and Hussein were dictators of their respective countries.

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Ted Cruz believes the Middle East was a safer place before the US helped to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it has been reported

Cruz said the toppling of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had shown the US has not learned lessons from history

In an interview with MSNBC, Cruz told Joe Scarborough: 'Now, what has been a mistake - and we’ve seen a consistent mistake in foreign policy - is far too often, we’ve seen Democrats and a lot of establishment Republicans in Washington get involved in toppling Middle Eastern governments.

'And it ends up benefiting the bad guys. It ends up handing them over to radical Islamic terrorists,'

He described Syrian president Bashar Assad as a 'monster' but warned that ISIS extremists would sweep further across the country were he to be overthrown.

He said: 'My view, instead of getting in the middle of a civil war in Syria, where we don’t have a dog in the fight, our focus should be on killing ISIS. Why? Because ISIS has declared war on America. They’re waging jihad.'

Cruz said it was 'not even a close call' when asked whether the Middle East was more secure when Gaddafi and Hussein (pictured) were dictators of their respective countries

Cruz described Syrian president Bashar Assad (pictured) as a 'monster' but warned that ISIS extremists would sweep further across the country were he to be overthrown

Since the death of Gaddafi, Cruz added, Libya had descended into a 'chaotic warzone ruled by radical Islamic terrorist'.

He said the toppling of the Libyan leader had shown that the US has not learned lessons from history.

The 44-year-old said: 'We killed him, and he was actually cooperating and hunting down and stopping radical Islamic terrorists. And what happened instead was Obama and Hillary led NATO in killing Gadhafi and, by the way, with the support of a whole lot of Republicans in Washington, who were wrong to do so.

'And the result is now Libya is a chaotic war zone ruled by radical Islamic terrorists.'

He ended the interview by saying that the US needed to be focusing on doing 'everything necessary to utterly defeating ISIS.

Cruz also yesterday defended Middle East dictators as useful allies against Islamic extremists during a Washington address.

The first-term Texas senator described 'America under attack' in remarks at a conservative think tank that spanned nearly an hour.

He reinforced his view that global security depends upon an aggressive and engaged America — with distinct limits.

He did not call for additional U.S. ground troops to confront the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, preferring instead to intensify the U.S.-led air campaign and arm regional allies.

And repeating policy prescriptions outlined during an interview last week, he lashed out at foreign policy hawks in both parties who helped ouster dictators in Egypt, Libya and Iraq and now have the same policy for Syria.

'We've seen the catastrophic results of these myopic policies,' he charged. 'We will not win by replacing dictators, as unpleasant as they may be, with terrorists who want to kill us and destroy America.'