Rand Paul Backs Trump’s Syria Pullout, Says Regime Change Doesn’t Work

Oct. 8, 2019 (EIRNS)—Does Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have the monopoly on sanity—at least with respect to the permanent war policy—in the U.S. Senate? In an interview, yesterday, with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Paul said that the Republican Party critics of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops back from the Syrian border—“Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, and on and on and on,” as Cavuto put it—are “the neocon war caucus of the Senate” and that they “always want to stay at war. They always think it’s the best answer.”

“The bottom line is, this chaos was fed by outside intervention,” Paul continued. “The Turks got involved.  We got involved, the Qataris, the Saudis.  All these people got involved in this Syrian civil war.  And to what end?” Paul said.

“I mean, hundreds of thousands of people have died.  Millions of people are displaced.  So, once again, the idea of regime change in the Middle East—and this is what President Trump is so right about—regime change hasn’t worked.  It’s led to more chaos. And the rise of ISIS came in the chaos of [Saddam] Hussein being toppled, but also the chaos of Assad’s regime being made marginal and made fragile.”

While Paul may have only had Republicans in mind when he identified the war party, the insane mob-like response to the White House announcement of Sunday night (Oct. 6) clearly indicates that the neo-con war caucus is bipartisan. Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued statements condemning the U.S. withdrawal, as did a long list of neo-con members of the war party in both the House and Senate. At least three Democratic presidential candidates also condemned Trump’s decision. Bernie Sanders called Trump’s decision “extremely irresponsible” while Elizabeth Warren said that Trump’s decision was “reckless and unplanned.”