Speaking at the fifth Republican Party debate on Tuesday night, Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul says Washington’s policy of supporting and arming anti-Damascus militants, fueled the rise of ISIS
Paul also distanced himself from his GOP rivals by warning against the United States pushing to oust the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad militarily.
Press TV reports:
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“We have to have a more realistic foreign policy and not a utopian one where we say, ‘Oh, we are going to spread freedom and democracy and everybody in the Middle East is going to love us.’ They are not going to love us,” Paul said.
He added that “by arming the allies of ISIS, the Islamic [sic] rebels [who were] against Assad, we created a safe space; we made that space bigger for ISIS to grow,” using an alternative acronym for the terrorist group.
The senator from Kentucky said “those who wanted a regime change had made a mistake.”
“I think when we toppled Gaddafi in Libya, I think, that was a mistake. I think ISIS grew stronger. We have a failed state and we’re more at risk,” he said.
He went on to say that “if you believe in regime change you are mistaken. In 2013, we put 600 tons of weapons – us, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – into the war against Assad. But pushing Assad back we did create a safe space [for Daesh].”
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. The United States and its regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – have been supporting the terrorists operating inside Syria since the beginning of the crisis.
The foreign-sponsored war against the Syrian state and people has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes.
Niamh Harris
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