Krauthammer: ‘Ignorance’ of Rand’s ISIS Comment ‘Really Astonishes Me’

Columnist Charles Krauthammer criticized GOP presidential candidate and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul for the “ignorance” of his comments on ISIS in an interview set to broadcast on Friday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”

Krauthammer said, “You know, sometimes Ron Paul’s ignorance really astonishes me,” before correcting himself to blame Rand Paul’s ignorance.

Krauthammer continued, “Is he aware of the fact that until…ISIS took over Palmyra, ISIS had not once taken a city or a town from the Assad government. Every place it has taken over was swallowing up territory from anti-Assad insurgents. … He doesn’t even understand that ISIS and the Assad government, until last week, when ISIS grew so strong that it could be bold and invade, essentially, Assad territory, Assad and ISIS has had this cozy, tacit, non-aggression agreement where they essentially split the country in two. And Assad relied upon ISIS to swallow up all the anti-Assad opposition.”

He concluded, “Number two, the idea that these weapons that we had given — well, that mostly occurred in Mosul. That was the outer — that’s after ISIS had taken over Syria. That’s after ISIS had already swept into parts of Iraq, and yes, it got a lot of weapons at the end. And I think our policy is misguided to arm the Iraqi Security Forces, which are unreliable, as our own Secretary of Defense has said, they don’t have the will to fight. But that’s not our mistake, the big mistake is — we should not be refraining from sending weapons. We should be sending them to the right people, to the Kurds who want to fight, and who are pro-American, and to the Sunni Anbar tribes, the few remaining right now cause it’s so late in the game, who are pro-American and desperate for weaponry to fight off ISIS.”

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