In June, Rand Paul was very skeptical about bombing ISIS. In August, he was ambivalent. In September, he strongly supported airstrikes.
The Kentucky senator’s rapid evolution from war skeptic to war hawk surprised many of his libertarian allies and conservative critics. “The sudden evaporation of Paul’s doubts reeks of political desperation,” wrote Reason‘s Jacob Sullum. “The challenge for Paul will be to demonstrate that his new opinions are the result of new facts, rather than a change in the temperature of public opinion,” wrote David Adesnik of the American Enterprise Insitute.
So how does Rand Paul explain his shifting position? He doesn’t. He denies that he’s changed his mind at all. On Tuesday, prior to the Senate Republicans’ weekly luncheon in the Capitol, Paul told me that he still has “exactly the same policy” on ISIS:
PAUL: I still have exactly the same policy. And that is that intervention militarily should be through an act of Congress.
Paul didn’t take any more questions before he entered a senators-only elevator. His answer was somewhat slippery: He was asked about his changing views on whether or not we should bomb ISIS, not whether the decision should be made by Congress. The senator has consistently called for Congress to make the decision, but his views on the wisdom of bombing ISIS have certainly changed. On June 19, a week after Mosul fell to ISIS, Paul suggested in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “America Shouldn’t Choose Sides in Iraq’s Civil War” that airstrikes would simply turn the United States into “Iran’s air force.” He added that trying to “transform Iraq into something more amenable to our interests would likely require another decade of U.S. presence and perhaps another 4,000 American lives.”
In August, after the Yazidis were massacred in Sinjar and Christians fled Mosul to avoid choosing between certain death or converting to Islam, Paul was more uncertain about bombing ISIS. “I have mixed feelings about it,” Paul said of the airstrikes that had just been ordered by President Obama. “I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to helping with arms or maybe even bombing,” he added, remaining decidedly indecisive.
In September, Paul came out in favor of bombing ISIS. “If I had been in President Obama’s shoes, I would have acted more decisively and strongly against ISIS,” he wrote in Time. “The military means to achieve these goals include airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Such airstrikes are the best way to suppress ISIS’s operational strength and allow allies such as the Kurds to regain a military advantage.”
Paul didn’t explain why he’s no longer concerned that we will become “Iran’s air force” if we bomb ISIS. He wrote in Time that the United States has an interest in defending its embassy and that he is “also persuaded by the plight of massacred Christians and Muslim minorities.” But weren’t these interests apparent back in May and June? Wouldn’t it have made sense to bomb ISIS before genocidal terrorists took Mosul and not after the massacres began? How can Paul claim he would have acted “more decisively and strongly” than President Obama when he remained undecided about airstrikes after Obama ordered them in August?
So far, Paul hasn’t answered these questions and many more.
