Proving that 52-year-old junior Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) can’t be trusted, he blamed hawks in the GOP for the rise of ISIS. Pointing fingers at Neocons that backed the Afghan and Iraq Wars, Paul insisted GOP hawks “created ISIS,” essentially by arming Iraq and letting weapons fall into terrorists’ hands. Paul’s remarks prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to call Paul unqualified for president. Announcing for president April 7, Paul expressed opposition to more Mideast wars, blaming hawks on Capitol Hill for unnecessary foreign intervention. “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately,” insisted Paul, giving less than half the story of the Iraq War. When you consider former President George W. Bush’s decision in the wake of Sept. 11 to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Paul’s analysis looks naïve and misguided.
When Bush decided to launch “shock-and-awe” March 20, 2003 starting the Iraq War, he went against his father’s, former President George H.W. Bush’s 1991, advise to leave the Iraqi dictator in power. Bush-41’s former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin L. Powell and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft advised against toppling Saddam, fearing a power vacuum that would unleash sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis and open the floodgates of terrorism. Paul mentions nothing about Saddam’s Sunni regime that controlled Iraq’s Shiite population for over 30 years. When Bush-43 toppled Saddam April 10, 2003, he had no way of controlling the dreaded power vacuum, opening Iraq long-contained civil war. Paul told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosted by former Congressman Joe Scarborough military-prone hawks on The Hill created the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Showing how poorly he knows the U.S. military or recent Iraq history, Paul believes funding and arming Iraq’s post-war military created ISIS. “They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved—the loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya. They just wanted more of it,” said Paul making no sense. Blaming Capitol Hill Republicans for ISIS is like blaming Democrats for al-Qaeda. When Bush-43 toppled Saddam’s Sunni Baathist government, it sent thousands of his disbanded military into hiding. Unhappy with the U.S.-backed puppet Shiite regime in Baghdad, Saddam’s dead-enders waited until U.S. combat forces pulled out Dec. 15, 2011 and launched a new offensive to retake Iraq under Saddam’s red-haired former Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and current head of Iraq’s Baath party 72-year-old Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.
Since toppled April 10, 2003, Saddam’s dead-enders have wanted to return Sunni Baathist rule to Baghdad. Installing Shiite regimes of Nouri al-Maliki and Haider al-Ababi hasn’t sat well with Iraq’s Sunnis. Whether or not more Sunnis sat in the Iraq parliament made little difference to Iraq’s post-Saddam stability. ISIS can only be understood not as a global terror organization like al-Qaeda but as a return to Baathist rule in Iraq and Syria. Suggesting, like Paul, that ISIS grew in strength because of abandoned U.S.-supplied military hardware tells only one small part of the story. ISIS was fueled by Iraq’s desire to return to Baathist rule. ISIS’s barbarism is no different than any other regime trying to assert power in the region. If ISIS were to topple Baghdad, it’s more likely to return Iraq to the same kind of authoritarian control before the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Paul’s incomplete story blames the wrong Party, especially the GOP. Many Democratic elected officials, including former Secretary of State and now front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, backed the Iraq War, ignoring the consequences of toppling Saddam. Arming the post-Saddam Iraq military is the smallest part of ISIS rise to power. ISIS re-emerged after Saddam’s former Revolutionary Guards decided to take back Iraq. Paul wants countries like Saudi Arabia to do the heavy lifting with military operations to topple ISIS. He knows that the Saudis are engaged in air strikes against Shiite Houthis in Yemen, with no interest in opening a new front in Iraq or Syria. While there’s plenty of blame to go around for ISIS, it’s not due to U.S. hardware falling into their hands.
Paul’s analysis that GOP Neocons armed the incompetent Iraqi military, only to watch heavy equipment fall into ISIS hands, makes little sense. If Paul wants to finger the right groups, he needs to fault Bush-43 and members of Congress for authorizing the Iraq War. Once Saddam was toppled, it was just a matter of time before loyal Baathists found a way to return to Baghdad. Capitalizing on Syria’s civil war, Gen. Izzat Ibrrahim al-Douri and Saddam’s former Republican Guards have returned in ISIS to reclaim Iraq. Using a figurehead like 42-year-old Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to recruit wayward youth into al-Douri’s Revolutionary Guards has given ISIS and unending crop of suicide-bombing soldiers to get back to Baghdad. Blaming the rise of ISIS on hawks in the U.S. Congress shows why Paul needs some urgent catch up in his knowledge of the Iraq War and Mideast.
