Graham: Rand ‘His Father’s Son,’ ‘Behind Obama’ on Foreign Policy

Senator and prospective presidential candidate Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) is “his father’s son” on foreign policy and “behind” President Obama and Hillary Clinton Monday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.

“Generally speaking, he’s been more wrong than right. He has an isolationist view of the world that I don’t share and I like him, but he’s his father’s — son.”

Regarding Syria Graham argued, “we should have done what everybody on the national security team of President Obama advised, do a no-fly zone, arm the Free Syrian Army and take a side out. You’ll never fix Syria without a side being gone, because the Sunni Arabs are not going to tolerate Assad being in charge, a puppet of the Iranians. And it’s about to take Jordan and Lebanon down. So, those who think that Syria is just an internal conflict doesn’t understand how Syria affects the Middle East.”

He added that in Libya, “we made a mistake not following up in Libya…[Qaddafi] was a bad actor on the world stage for a long period of time. The people in Libya said ‘we want you gone’ so what’s our policy as Americans? ‘Good luck, sit on the sidelines and get slaughtered?'” And argued against the notion that terrorism was a reaction to US foreign policy.

Graham concluded, “she [Hillary] supported a leading from behind president…Rand Paul is one step behind leading from behind. So, yes even Obama is more aggressive. Obama believes you can kill Anwar [al]-Awlaki without getting a court order, Obama believes you can hold enemy combatants — unlawful enemy combatants at Gitmo without a criminal because this is law of war detention. So, Rand Paul is behind Obama, not just Hillary Clinton.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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