Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is running for the Republican presidential nomination as an “Obama Republican,” according to the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board.
The Journal on Wednesday trained its fire on Paul after he said “hawks” in the GOP were responsible for creating the Islamic State extremist terrorist group.
“[A]n aide might want to remind Sen. Paul which party’s nomination he is seeking,” said the Journal. “Republicans who begin their campaigns assailing other Republicans rarely succeed — especially when the accusation is culpability for a would-be caliphate that uses executions, slavery, extortion, rape and general terror to enforce oppression in the Middle East and North Africa, and whose ideology inspires jihadists worldwide.”
The Journal said Paul would be following President Obama’s “anti-interventionist” foreign policies, citing the president’s troop withdrawals from the Middle East and reluctance to intervene in Syria, where the Islamic State has established footing.
“[I]f he wants to run as an Obama Republican on foreign policy, [Paul] shouldn’t also adopt the Obama trick of rewriting history,” wrote the Journal. “It reflects poorly on his judgment as a potential commander in chief.”
Paul said Wednesday on MSNBC that “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately.”
The Journal’s editorial argued that the Islamic State was actually created when Islamic fighters left over from the war in Iraq regrouped and grew stronger when Obama withdrew U.S. troops from the region.
The Journal has been critical of Paul’s foreign policy positions in the past, citing them as a reason he is unqualified to be president.
After Paul said National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden should receive leniency for leaking classified information to news outlets, the Journal said in 2014 that Paul “shows an unseriousness about national security that would make him unsuitable to be commander in chief.”
Following Paul’s 2013 active filibuster against the Obama administration’s drone policies, the Journal said Paul “needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms.”
