Texas Rep. Ron Paul is expected to finish among the top three in tonight’s Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. He may even win the thing, thanks to years of organizing his troops on the ground, mounting a well-funded campaign, and articulating an anti-centralized government that many Americans find appealing. He has also challenged the idea that America has any business interfering in the affairs of any other country. It’s not necessary to agree with his thinking to recognize why others find it compelling. But Paul and his enthusiasts err when they claim he is advocating the same isolationist foreign policy that was advanced by George Washington and the other members of the Founders.

Paul has been running a television commercial during the Iowa campaign that prominently features quotes from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The former said “Congress alone is constitutionally vested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, [so] I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force to any degree.” The Madison quote is this: “The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.” Hence, Paul’s opposition to the war in Iraq, the intervention in Libya, and to U.S. intervention to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.