News Analysis: Ted Cruz's White House run underscores foreign policy as top concern for 2016 U.S. elections

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz's recent announcement of his intention to run for president underscored the major role foreign policy will play in the 2016 race to the White House.

Cruz, a conservative Republican, on Monday became the first Republican candidate to formally announce his decision to run. In a nationally televised speech, the Tea Party backed senator upbraided the current administration for its perceived missteps in the foreign policy realm.

While Cruz has virtually no chance of gaining his party's nomination to face likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, his emphasis on U.S. foreign policy foreshadows a race in which foreign policy will be a top issue, experts said.

"We have two factors at play -- the rapid rise of IS (Islamic State) and what could be a highly controversial nuclear deal with Iran," Republican strategist Ford O'Connell said of the terror group that has overrun vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, as well as the nuclear deal with Iran that Republicans and other critics are likely to blast as too soft on Iran.

"These two things are driving national security higher on the agenda for the average voter," O'Connell said.

"Will foreign policy trump economic concerns? No. But I don't think it will take a back seat like it has in the past," he added.

In a speech at Liberty University that emphasized where he believes U.S. foreign policy has gone wrong under the current administration led by President Barack Obama, Cruz said: "Imagine a president who says, 'We will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism -- and we will call it by its name.'"

Cruz was referring to Obama's ongoing and bizarre refusal to link radical Islam to the threat of IS, instead using a hodgepodge of terminology to beat around the bush, such as the terms "extremism" and "radicalism."

His words echoed the sentiments of not only many Republicans but of other critics who blast Obama for dismissing IS as amateurs until the problem boiled over.

The focus on foreign policy may spell trouble for Clinton, as critics will view the likely candidate as tainted by the White House's perceived foreign policy blunders and lack of foresight, carried out by what critics call a particularly weak foreign policy team with no real strategic thinker on board.

IS poses a major problem for the United States, which aims to keep terrorism in check a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The militants' territorial gains have Washington worried that its ultimate nightmare could come true -- that the group could carve out a haven in Iraq or Syria and use it as a staging ground for attacks against the U.S., much like al-Qaida did in Afghanistan.

The IS threat is unlikely to disappear overnight, and Clinton's opponents will argue that she, as secretary of state, might have helped stop the militants before they gained traction, had she and the administration kept their eyes on Iraq.

While Clinton racked up nearly a million miles in the air and visited dozens of countries as secretary of state, Republicans will likely blast her for playing it safe and not having solved any of the world's troubles.

"Republicans are going to turn around and say 'that's not an accomplishment, that's just you earning frequent flyer miles," O'Connell said. Endi