Rare News Desk
Senator Rand Paul’s op-ed in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday accused American foreign policy makers, or “interventionists,” of acting in the Middle East without regard to the consequences. He says this has unintentionally aided and abetted the rise of ISIS.
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Specifically, Paul criticized the attempts to remove Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from power, telling Breitbart News’ Matt Boyle that the Obama administration’s Libya policies led to the attacks on the Benghazi consulate on September 11, 2012.
There are consequences to American foreign policy. Rand Paul asked that we consider them.
That’s all it took for defenders of America’s foreign policy status quo in both parties to sharpen their knives.
If you ever wondered what happened to the anti-war left, apparently they’re now copying and pasting old Republican National Committee press releases from 2004 to attack Rand Paul today—the Democratic National Committee’s response was to accuse Paul of “blaming America.” Seriously.
On the right, Rick Santorum said Paul was “advocating Obama’s failed isolationism.”
We need strong leadership in Mid-East, not what @SenRandPaul is advocating: more of Obama's failed isolationism http://t.co/n3fzAfb7x8
— Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) August 28, 2014
Try to reconcile those two statements.
As usual, the most juvenile reaction to Paul came from the Washington Post’s “conservative” blogger, Jennifer Rubin who wrote something called “Isolationist Ideologue Rand Paul Spouts Off Again.”
An elementary understanding of definition of “isolationist” tells you that Rand Paul is not one.
However, Rubin’s piece itself is even more absurd. She writes:
“In both pieces, he perversely argues that the United States created the Islamic State by previous interventions. (In case you have forgotten, the United States talked a good game but did nothing to aid the non-jihadi Syrian rebels. Thousands of jihadists then poured into Syria. This resulted in nearly 200,000 dead Syrians and an Islamist State on the march in Iraq.)”
Actually, the U.S. has been aiding the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels (more on them in a second). In July, the Washington Post—where Rubin writes—reported that the U.S. has been covertly aiding the Syrian rebels for over a year. The Washington Post reported in September 2013 of arms shipments to the rebels from the CIA.
Does Jennifer Rubin read her own newspaper?
The Daily Telegraph reported that the U.S. coordinated arms shipments out of Croatia to the Syrian rebels as early as November 2012.
The U.S. has been aiding the rebels in Syria and to claim otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
Rubin continues: (emphasis hers):
“Paul still seems entirely ignorant of the non-jihadi Free Syrian Army. At times, he seems to be flat- out lying or else he is baffled by the arguments flying back and forth. (“We should realize that the interventionists are calling for Islamic rebels to win in Syria and for the same Islamic rebels to lose in Iraq.” No one is calling for Islamists to win in Syria. They are trying to aid the Free Syrian Army, which is fighting both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State.)”
Let’s assume there are so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria. Even the so-called Free Syrian Army has been accused of slaughtering Christians and is aligned with other jihadist organizations.
Still, let’s pretend for argument’s sake that the Free Syrian Army are non-jihadist.
Increasing reports claim the Free Syrian Army is not calling shots in the war against Assad. In fact, it is the jihadist organizations and fighters who are doing the bulk of the fighting against Assad’s military. There are even actual Free Syrian Army brigades who are actually defecting and joining ISIS.
Arming and aiding the Free Syrian Army at this point would essentially be handing weapons and trained fighters to ISIS.
Rubin also had this:
(PAUL: “Those wanting a U.S. war in Syria could not clearly show a U.S. national interest then, and they have been proven foolish now. A more realistic foreign policy would recognize that there are evil people and tyrannical regimes in this world, but also that America cannot police or solve every problem across the globe. Only after recognizing the practical limits of our foreign policy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of the U.S.”) In fact, early intervention in Syria, well before jihadis flowed into the country, and then ventured back into Iraq, would have prevented a bloody civil war with dire consequences.
There was a country where the U.S. did what Jennifer Rubin suggested, which is get involved in another nation’s civil war to aid ostensibly secular rebels–Libya. In fact, Rubin supported President Obama’s decision to bomb Libya in 2011 in order to enforce a United Nations “no-fly zone” and in fact demanded Obama act sooner than he did.
Has Libya turned into a shining example of a stable liberal democracy in the Islamic world after the removal of Muammar Gaddafi? No, instead it is giving Somalia a run for its money as the most unstable country in Africa. A few days ago, Libyan Islamists have captured Tripoli’s airport and have all but taken the Libya’s capitol city. Weapons and jihadists from Libya have been bringing jihad and death all over West Africa including Mali and Nigeria.
Reckless interventionism has consequences, as Senator Paul urged everyone to recognize in his op-ed. As much as American hawks in both parties deny it, the facts illustrate that.
To point them out does is not “blaming America.” Admitting problems is a necessary first step to correcting them.
The results of undisciplined U.S. interventionism puts the country at greater risk and has enabled the rise of radical Islam to a level more worrisome than even before 9/11.
Instead of throwing around pejoratives like “isolationist,” let’s take Rand Paul’s advice and adopt a foreign policy of restraint based on clear national interests.
