The Republican senator, who has become the foreign policy alternative voice to Sen. John S. McCain III (R-Ariz.) met with reporters Sept. 3 to flesh out his view on President Barack Obama’s Syrian machinations.
“I think there is a good possibility that Iran or Russia could be involved,” said Sen. Randall H. Paul (R-Ky.), minutes after sitting through the afternoon-long testimony by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Secretary of Defense Charles T. Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey on the president’s plan to attack Syria.
“There are a lot of unknowns,” he said.
Among the unknowns are whether Iran and or Syria will attack Israel in retaliation for a strike by the United States and whether it is a good idea to bomb sites where sarin gas is stored, possibly unleashing the poison onto an unprotected population.
In the senator’s interaction with Kerry, the two provided the only fireworks in at the Democratic-controlled committee.
While Paul repeatedly asked Kerry if Obama would ignore Congress and attack Syria, if the House and Senate vote down authorization to launch, Kerry repeatedly asserted the president’s plan to target Syrian government and military sites with missile and bombs is not an act of war.
When Paul first heard that the president was going to Congress for approval he told Kerry he wanted to give the president a standing ovation.
Then, the president said he would attack Syria regardless of what Congress decided.
Obama wants to have it both ways, the senator said.
Kerry then told the senators these attacks would not escalate or expand beyond precise objectives.
On the call, Paul was skeptical. “The problem with future is that no one knows it.”
Anyone who claims to know the future is dealing in conjecture, he said.
It is not the first time Paul has raised objections to Obama’s handling of the Syrian account.
In the January hearings on Benghazi, Paul pressed then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton about the Fast and Furious-like operation the Obama administration was running in Libya, where weapons and materials were being passed from that country to Syrian insurgents.
Clinton dismissed the question, telling Paul to ask the CIA to explain their operation and to leave her out of it.
It should not be lost on American military planners that the recent US-Israeli missile test was not detected by the Syrians, but by the Russians, who then gave the Syrians and the world the heads-up.
Obama may be willing to go it alone, but Syria is not without friends who might enjoy the thrill of taking down an American plane or warship, if only for the nostalgia.
On the call, the senator made it clear that the president has wide latitude to execute a war, but it was the prerogative of Congress to declare war, so there is nothing wrong with thoroughly discussing what military action against the Assad regime would mean.
During the recess, Paul visited 40 Kentucky cities and he did not meet one person in his state who supported military action against Syria, he said. “The phone calls to the office have been running more than nine out of 10 against.”
As for a filibuster of authorization to attack Syria, Paul said before he considers it he will get a good pair of shoes and practice holding his water.
Neil W. McCabe is the editor of Human Event’s “Guns & Patriots” e-letter and was a senior reporter at the Human Events newspaper. McCabe deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq for 15 months as a combat historian. For many years, he was a reporter and photographer for “The Pilot,” Boston’s Catholic paper. He was also the editor of two free community papers, “The Somerville (Mass.) News and “The Alewife (North Cambridge, Mass.).”
