Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) made an appearance on Fox News on Monday to criticize the “neocon war caucus” within the Republican Party that always stands in the way of bringing the troops home.
“A lot of people in your own party, from Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, and on and on and on, says this is a travesty, it’s a bad move, it emboldens our enemies. What do you say?” host Neil Cavuto asked Paul.
“Well, it sounded like you just listed the neocon war caucus of the Senate. So, yes, they always want to stay at war. They always think it’s the best answer,” Paul responded.
“But I would say this. I think President Trump recognizes what President Reagan recognized — unfortunately too late, in Beirut. Leaving three or 400 people in an area that are vulnerable could lead to catastrophe, but also doesn’t really do anything to secure our national security,” he added.
Paul feels that leaving a small amount of troops in the area will only lead to catastrophes that can be used by warmongers to justify further invasions in the future.
“You know, I’m kind of the belief go big — go big or go home. You know, 200 or 300 people are just a trip wire to get us drawn into something and a tragedy probably, but they aren’t enough to do anything,” Paul said.
He recommends for Kurds to take sanctuary in Iraq, in order to avoid the wrath of Turkish Islamic dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“Right now, there at least is a Kurdish autonomous region within Iraq. And I think that’s a good place for people to live if they want to have more Kurdish autonomy,” Paul said. “But then it may be unrealistic to think that either Turkey or Syria is going to give up part of their territory up there to an autonomous region for the Kurds.”
Paul noted that all of the major problems within the region have been caused by foreign intervention, and the only long-term solution is to bring the troops home and let the various countries in the Middle East handle their own affairs.
“The bottom line is, this chaos was fed by outside intervention. The Turks got involved. We got involved, the Qataris, the Saudis. All these people got involved in this Syrian civil war. And to what end?” Paul asked.
“I mean, hundreds of thousands of people have died. Millions of people are displaced. So, once again, the idea of regime change in the Middle East — and this is what President Trump is so right about — regime change hasn’t worked. It’s led to more chaos,” he added.
“And the rise of ISIS came in the chaos of Hussein being toppled, but also the chaos of Assad’s regime being made marginal and made fragile,” Paul concluded.
The video of the entire exchange between Cavuto and Paul can be seen here:
