"Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya" is to blame "for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading throughout the Middle East," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom” today. “The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and it’s also a breeding ground for armaments."
Bill Hemmer, the host of “America’s Newsroom” asked Paul if he would give the President the authorization for use of force.
“I think the only way this battle ultimately is won, is with troops on the ground – but they need to be Arab troops; they need to be Iraqis, they need to be Kurds,” said Paul. “One of the things we could do is directly arm the Kurds…. Right now we’re destroying our own weapons in Afghanistan; maybe we ought to think about taking some of the weapons, if we’re no longer using them in Afghanistan, and transferring them to the Kurds.”
Paul continued: “The Kurds are the best fighters over there; I think we really need to incorporate them and give them the goal of a homeland, and I think they will be even more fierce fighters. …We need to incorporate Turkey, and Turkey needs to have troops on the ground. The Jordanians are fired up… I think the Jordanians need to be part of this war with troops on the ground. It’s coalition building, and I think the President’s strategy so far is not working.”
Hemmer: “So I’ll put you down as ‘maybe.’”
Paul laughed.
“Is maybe a fair classification, or not?”
“Well I think the President has to do much more,” said Paul. While conceding that ISIS had been pushed back and is no longer threatening some of the dams, Paul said he blames Hillary Clinton for setbacks American policy has experienced throughout the Middle East.
“One of the people I blame for a lot of this, frankly, is Hillary Clinton,” said Paul. “The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and it’s also a breeding ground for armament. I really do blame Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading throughout the Middle East.”
Hemmer said that Paul is perceived as a “reluctant warrior” and asked Paul “What do you think about that charge?”
Paul said that most Presidents, like Reagan and Eisenhower, saw war as a last resort, but “I think we do have to militarily confront ISIS.”
Paul: “We were somewhat complicit in allowing ISIS to grow…because we and our allies sent 600 tons of weapons into [the Syrian] civil war. I was one who voted against arming the Syrian rebels, the Islamic rebels in Syria, because I said one irony is we’ll be back one day to fight our own weapons.”
“Now that day has come, and we do have to militarily confront ISIS,” he said. “I think Hillary’s war in Libya, and then Hillary’s admonition, the President’s admonition, and frankly some Republicans' admonition, to get involved in the Syrian civil war has actually now created a bigger problem, which is ISIS,” concluded Paul.