Politics

Rand Paul Pulls Rhetorical Judo on Foreign Policy Foes, Calling Them "Isolationist"

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Libertarian Republic reports on a foreign policy speech by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul this week:

Senator Rand Paul detailed his views on diplomacy Tuesday in a speech before the Center for the National Interest…..The US, he said, should employ trade and diplomacy whenever possible while scaling back overseas police action…

The Senator criticized neoconservatives for having forsaken this tradition, arguing that they really promote "not a neoconservatism but a neoisolationism in which diplomacy is distrusted and war is, if not the first option, the preferred option."

"Neoconservatives brag of their desire for engagement, but increasingly preach a doctrine that is hostile to diplomatic engagement," said Paul. "To this crowd, everyone who doesn't agree with them is the next Chamberlain. To this crowd, anyone who doesn't clamor first for the military option is somehow an isolationist. The irony is that the crowd that claims they want to engage often opposes diplomatic engagement."

Funny because it's true! I wrote in September a compare and contrast of Obama's foreign policy vision and Paul's, in the context of Syria.