What Would a Rand Paul Libertarian Foreign Policy Look Like? by Juan Cole

[Douglas Carpenter]

Posted on Mar 18, 2013


Flickr/Gage Skidmore

When the Senate passed a resolution in September pledging never to accept an Iranian nuclear weapon, there was only one dissenting vote: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “A vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of pre-emptive war,” the libertarian-leaning Republican said.

Paul most recently made headlines with his nearly 13-hour filibuster of the confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan, an architect of the Obama administration’s drone program. He wanted assurances that the administration forswore the use of drones against U.S. citizens on American soil. His longer-term strategy to rein in the drone program is to try to have the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution repealed. Paul complains that the resolution is far too expansive and has authorized U.S. involvement in “20 countries.”

There is much in Paul’s proposed foreign policy that will appeal to progressives. The American left typically also opposes war as anything other than a very last resort, and would favor withdrawal from Afghanistan and avoidance of a Syrian quagmire. Containment of Iran as a policy is obviously preferable to bombing it. Questioning of President Obama’s rather lawless drone strikes and an aspiration to finally end the Authorization for Use of Military Force are all to the good. Still, the grounds of Paul’s foreign policy should raise alarums. His expansive notion of “radical Islam” sweeps up many movements and countries that are not playing an adversarial role against the United States and do not need to be contained. In some ways, Paul wants to replace the neoconservatives’ war on terror with a containment of terror, yet he shares many of their mistaken premises about the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. Sometimes his dismissiveness toward other countries, as with his reduction of Libya to 100 tribes, is almost racist.

Despite his disavowal of isolationism, Paul’s policy prescriptions would often have that exact effect. Would it be better to give aid to revolutionary Egypt in hopes of thereby remaining in a position to influence Morsi’s directives, or to cut it off because the country’s electorate dared to vote for a Muslim fundamentalist? There is also a danger that Paul’s instinct to disengage without delay could have the opposite effect of the one he is seeking. He acknowledges that after getting abruptly out of Afghanistan, the U.S. might have to go back in with aerial bombardment if the Taliban regroup. Wouldn’t it be ironic if a President Rand Paul one day had to initiate drone strikes on Kandahar and Khost? Moreover, some of the grounds of his reluctance to engage with the Middle East also have a whiff of prejudice and Islamophobia

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/what_would_a_rand_paul_libertarian_foreign_policy_look_like_20130318/

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It seems to me that on foreign policy - Rand Paul - like his father - but perhaps more like Pat Buchanan on many issues holds a progressive position - but driven by reactionary motives. Or prehaps one could say that on foreign policy he holds the right position on my issues - but for the wrong reasons. It would certainly concern me that a xenophobic motivated disengaement from the world contains some real dangers in itself.

I would find it hard to imagine that the Republican Party would be prepared to embrace such a radical departure from the neoconservative ideology that was supported by every major contender for the Republican nomination for President in the last several elections cycles. It would be hard to imagine that the party that has had as its strongest and most vitriolic criticism of not only Obama but of every Democrat for the past 50 years that they are weak on defense would now consider going farther than any prominent mainstream Democrat since George McGovern to remove America from a military posture.

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[TwilightGardener]

1. It would look like disjointed crap, since he has no real convictions and principles.

Hopefully, we'll never know.

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. that is what I am wondering - will he try to gradually reposition himself into perhaps a more

mainstream Republican position the way Romney disavowed his "Massachusetts moderate" positions - not by denouncing and repudiating them -but by pretending that he was always really a conservative and a "severely conservative Governor"? Perhaps Rand Paul three years from now will be telling primary voters that he was always "a severely pro-national defense Senator." . Or is Rand Paul just enough of a true believer to try to sell his somewhat moderated "libertarian-conservative" or "paleo-conservative" politics appealing to xenophobic isolationism that no doubt many tea party types do support? I suppose that depends on how much he wants to win versus how much of a true believer he is. If he chooses the latter course and runs as a true believer and somehow wins the nomination that would in effect mean the Republican Party was going to cease being the "strong on defense - strong on national security Party." That was the position of many Republicans of an earlier pre-Eisenhower era. I can't imagine that kind of shift. But then again I don't really think most rank and file of the Republican Party base really think through the implications of what they are supporting. But I cannot imagine the Republican Party establishment sitting idly by while a bunch of people whom the consider a bunch of kooks take over the Party.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Repubs are tired of war and war spending--but they're not ready to cut themselves

loose from defense and neocon policies just yet. Rubio will be a more marketable choice to the oldsters (which is probably 80% of the party). He looks like a nice young clean cut grandson to them, nothing threatening--he'll pull them in. Paul is trying to re-capture his dad's (youngish) crowd, but his dad had heartfelt cohesive beliefs and principles about foreign policy, Israel, war, etc. Rand Paul, by contrast, is clearly making it up as he goes along. It's piecemeal and opportunistic, and he won't be able to make it all work together in order to keep the GOP/TP foreign policy and defense interests in his camp--I think you are right on them not shifting long-held beliefs just for Paul. They sure didn't do it for his dad, and little Randy doesn't seem the man his dad was, however kooky. In the long run, I don't see it--he looks too flavor-of-the-month right now.