here. we are where we are with a very serious situation because we've had a failed policy. so what washington needs to focus on is policy. we need to focus less on the rhetoric. the rhetoric did not get us here. my whole point in bringing up president obama's rhetoric is to show that even tough rhetoric from a different person is absolutely not working. the policy is not working. >> uh-huh. understood. richard, thank you very much. chris cillizza, margaret talev, appreciate it. so a little bit of this no matter how you feel about it does come down to the central issue of approach and the president's approach is different than what we've seen in the past. even if president obama said he could destroy it, it wasn't a constant narrative of threat in response to threat. so is this the best way to go? we have a republican senator from the foreign relations committee with his take next.