Rand Paul Calls Hussein’s Ouster a ‘Mistake,’ and Qaddafi’s a ‘Disaster’
For some time, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican presidential contender, has been trying to persuade supporters of Israel and foreign-policy hawks in his party that he is not the isolationist many believe him to be. On Monday, he brought that message to a group of about 30 Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn.
But the message he imparted did not entirely bolster his case — and was particularly curious given the audience he had chosen: Mr. Paul said flatly that it had been a “mistake” for the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. And he suggested that the situation in Libya had deteriorated because of the overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
“Each time we topple a secular dictator, I think we wind up with chaos, and radical Islam seems to rise,” Mr. Paul said.
Still, Mr. Paul insisted that he did not oppose all foreign military interventions. “I’m not an isolationist,” he said. “I’m somebody who believes that war is the last resort.”
Speaking at the headquarters of the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, Mr. Paul was unambiguous in arguing that Tehran had only become more powerful since the fall of Mr. Hussein, who he said had been a “bulwark” against Iran’s influence in the region. “It was a mistake to topple Hussein,” the senator said.
And he called the 2011 overthrow of Colonel Qaddafi — which he labeled “Hillary’s war,” referring to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state at the time — an “utter disaster.”
“Qaddafi wasn’t a good guy, but he suppressed radical Islam,” Mr. Paul said. “Now that Qaddafi is gone, the country is in civil war, the ambassador was killed, our embassy fled.”
Mr. Paul has made similar remarks in the past, including after he declared his presidential run this month. But to the specially arranged group of Orthodox Jews, to whom Israel’s security is of great importance, his comments took on a different hue.
“Clearly Senator Paul does not pander,” said Michael Fragin, a Republican who attended the gathering and hosts a weekly radio show about politics in New York. “Telling this audience that the Middle East was better off with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi in power shocked me. It was a rambling and incoherent expression of foreign policy that puts him closer to Bernie Sanders than anyone in the G.O.P.”
Mr. Paul’s audience was otherwise quite friendly, however, though it was heavily Democratic: He fielded several questions whose preambles were so laudatory of Mr. Paul that they could have been scripted.
Mr. Paul also expressed qualified support for the Obama administration’s talks on a nuclear-containment deal with Iran. “The interim agreement that we are under now, while not perfect, is better than no agreement and no inspections,” he said.
He argued that his position mirrored what Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told Congress last month. “I’m for negotiations as opposed to war,” Mr. Paul said. “If there’s a way we can have a negotiated peace, I want peace as opposed to war.”
And he criticized those who, “I think, frankly, have a simplistic understanding of this, who think war is the only option.”
“I still think there are other options,” the senator said. “That doesn’t mean I favor a bad deal, though.”