Rand Paul Shreds Trump’s Reasons For Iran War: ‘I Don’t Think The Arguments Are Valid’
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President Donald Trump and his administration have shared many different reasons for his now-ongoing war on Iran, and none of them have convinced Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to support the conflict, which has already cost at least seven U.S. servicemembers their lives.
Paul has distinguished himself from the majority of his GOP peers by opposing the administration’s foreign interventions and military operations, and criticized the purported rationales for the Iran war during an appearance on Tuesday on the Fox Business Network.
“One reason is that we want to free the Iranian people from oppression,” Paul told Maria Bartiromo. “I have a great deal of sympathy. I want people to be free around the world. But if our foreign policy is to free oppressed people, I’m not sure where war would end.”
He explained, “I mean, there are many people that are said to be oppressed in China, Tibet, the Uyghurs, North Korea, Russia. Where would war end if our goal is to free oppressed people? So I think that goal is too grandiose and would perpetually tie us up in war.”
Paul argued that the purportedly most pressing reason is just as questionable as the first.
“Another statement has been made, ‘Well, they’re a week away from a nuclear weapon,’” the Kentucky Republican said. “You can take clips from the ’90s all the way through the present of people arguing that they’re a week away from nuclear weapons.”
That particular narrative has arguably been disproved by the passage of time itself. “The Daily Show” last year cut together a montage, stretching from 1995 to 2025, of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat.
“Then, there were arguments made, ‘Well, their ballistic missiles are almost able to reach the U.S.,’ But then our intelligence countered that and said really they would be six months to a year [from being able to do that], if they made that attempt [in the first place],” said Paul.
Paul has also criticized the U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in Caribbean and Pacific waters.
Rod Lamkey, Jr./Associated Press
He continued, “We were also told their nuclear weapons were ‘obliterated,’ and now we’re told their nuclear weapons are just moments away from being a bomb. So I guess I don’t think the arguments are valid, and I think war should be the last resort, not the first resort.”
The constitutional conservative has consistently opposed the Trump administration’s foreign military entanglements. Last year, Paul called the ongoing U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in Pacific and Caribbean waters “summary execution.”
Trump maintains that war with Iran is necessary to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, despite announcing last year that these capabilities had been “totally obliterated” in targeted U.S. strikes. Paul decried the conflict as a glaring “war of choice.”
He concluded, “A war of choice is not my choice.”
