Well, for all the talk of Rand Paul’s adherence to principle, we’re learning that he’s actually highly malleable when it comes to his policy positions. And as for his willingness to buck the Republican establishment, we’re seeing that whenever he does bend on policy, it’s usually in the direction of the Republican consensus. He did it on immigration, portraying himself as both a hardline border security proponent and an advocate for comprehensive reform, depending on which viewpoint dominated Republican thinking at the time. And now that Republicans are pressuring President Obama to take unspecified military action against ISIS, he’s abandoning his much-derided (in Republican circles) anti-interventionist foreign policy rhetoric in favor of the bellicose posturing of the rest of the hawkish GOP.
“If I were President,” Paul wrote in an email to the Associated Press, “I would call a joint session of Congress. I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily.” That’s an overly simplified version of what the U.S. is looking at when it comes to confronting the terrorist group. Any U.S. effort to “destroy ISIS militarily” will require a huge commitment of men and materiel, along with political commitments from regional actors, and will take years.
And as Steve Benen points out, this is a complete flip from what Rand Paul was saying just last week about America’s role and responsibility in confronting ISIS:
A week ago today, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal condemning “interventionists,” who are quick to use military force abroad “with little thought to the consequences.” Over the course of his 900-word piece, the Republican senator was dismissive of the “hawkish members of my own party.”
“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,” Paul wrote. “Only after recognizing the practical limits of our foreign policy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of the U.S.”
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/03/rand_pauls_flip_flop_nightmare_non_interventionist_now_backs_war_in_the_middle_east
Some of the "shine" coming off the Paul non-interventionist rose. Guess we'll see if he backs away from some other policies which are popular with some here and moves "in the direction of the Republican consensus".
This flip-flop on intervention is Iraq does show that he is very serious about running for the republican nomination for president.
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