As Iowa looms and many polls show Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) in the lead or running a close second to Mitt Romney, scrutiny of Paul’s positions has understandably increased. And while some of Paul’s domestic positions have been easy prey for his fellow Republicans–especially when Paul sounds more like Glenn Beck than Ronald Reagan–it’s his foreign policy positions that have really demonstrated the truthfulness of what Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, and host of others have claimed: namely, that Paul is to the left of Obama when it comes to using the military, confronting our enemies abroad, and supporting our key allies (like Israel).
For example: Just days after Obama gave the Navy Seals the go-ahead for a kill shot on Osama Bin Laden, Paul denounced the move. He claimed that he would not have authorized Bin Laden’s death, that “it absolutely was not necessary.” Instead, he said, we should have worked with Pakistan so as to have them apprehend Bin Laden and then turn him over to us. The fact that Bin Laden had been living in Pakistan for years while the nation did nothing to arrest or even detain him seems to be lost on Paul.
Then there’s Paul’s approach to our enemies, whereby he removes the blame that they should rightly bear by asserting America’s culpability in attacks on its people. For example, Paul contends that America deserves some share of the blame for the September 11th attacks inasmuch as he believes our presence in the Middle East was a catalyst for them. Folks, this is a foreign policy position even Michael Moore could love. And it is little wonder the Daily Caller compared Paul to Obama’s Pastor Jeremiah Wright for saying these things. After all, he’s not too far removed from saying America’s “chickens have come to roost” when he places partial blame for 9/11 on the U.S.
And then there’s Israel, a nation that must have taken note when Paul spoke of how he would cut aid to them during one of the recent televised debates. If Israel didn’t take note then, I’m sure they have learned to since, as Paul has made it clear he would not have sent U.S. troops into Germany to stop the Holocaust.
For example, when a reporter asked him if he were president during the era of Hitler and the Third Reich presented no threat to the U.S., would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany purely as a moral imperative to save the Jews? Paul’s answer was chilling: “No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t risk American lives to do that. If someone wants to do that on their own because they want to do that, well, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t do that.”
From Paul’s answer it’s quite easy to extrapolate just how many tyrants would still be in alive–and perhaps not only alive but well–if Paul’s views on foreign policy had been dominant during the last 60 years. Conversely, it’s nearly impossible to imagine how many more Jews, millions more, would have been wiped off the face of the earth by the Nazis. One thing’s for sure; it’s safe to assume that Israel would be in an even more precarious position than they are today, if in fact they still existed.
To put it simply: there’s radical, and then there’s Ron Paul’s foreign policy. He certainly makes Obama look like a hawk.