Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) told an audience at the Campbellsville Chamber of Commerce in Kentucky on Monday that he has "mixed feelings" about the airstrikes President Barack Obama launched in Iraq last week to combat jihadists affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL). Paul also indicated the Obama administration should have done more to fight ISIS while the group was gaining ground in its battles with the Syrian Regime of Bashar Assad beginning in 2011.
"I have mixed feelings about it. I'm not saying I'm completely opposed to helping with arms or maybe even bombing, but I am concerned that ISIS is big and powerful because we protected them in Syria for a year," Paul said.
Paul has cemented himself as one of the leading potential Republican 2016 presidential candidates with a libertarian brand of conservatism that includes skepticism of foreign military intervention. However, he was initially conspicuously silent on the airstrikes and did not respond to requests to comment on the issue from multiple media outlets including Business Insider.
Along with implying ISIS grew because the U.S. did not back other groups in the fighting in Syria, Paul pointed out some of the same foreign policy hawks who support the current airstrikes also wanted to launch military operations against Assad.
"Do you know who also hates ISIS and who is bombing them? Assad, the Syrian government. So a year ago, the same people who want to bomb ISIS wanted to bomb Syria last year," said Paul. "Syria and ISIS are on opposite sides of the war. We're now bombing both sides of one war that has spread into another country."
Paul said the examples of Syria and ISIS show why some Americans might want a more "moderate" foreign policy.
"There are a lot of people independent or Democrat that would like a reasonable foreign policy where we're not always at war," Paul said. "Where we are reluctant to go to war, where we have more of a moderate foreign policy, I think is appealing to a lot of people. I think democrats fear that."