Last week, the Republican presidential contenders slugged it out inIowa.\u00a0 As usual, Ron Paul\u2019s remarks concerning American foreign policy has drawn heat.<\/p>\n
Paul is by far the most honest of the candidates.\u00a0 At the same time, he is also the most unpolished.\u00a0 In fact, chances are better than not that the former accounts for the latter.<\/p>\n
Substantively speaking, Paul\u2019s ideas are more cogent, and certainly more consistent with liberty, than any of those bandied about his rivals.\u00a0 But stylistically, he is at a disadvantage.\u00a0 Like or not, we are living in an imagistic age in which, as far as the electability of a candidate is concerned, style means at least as much, and often much more, than substance.<\/p>\n
Paul, that is, needs to package his eminently sensible ideas so as to make them more palatable to both the base of his party as well as the rest of the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fortunately, this is hardly as formidable a task as some may think. In fact, it isn\u2019t particularly formidable at all.<\/p>\n
When it comes toIsrael, for example, imagine something like these words springing from the lips of Congressman Paul:<\/p>\n
\u201cI am opposed to all <\/em>foreign aid.\u00a0 What this means, more precisely, is that I oppose the practice\u2014a practice that our Founding Fathers, those great apostles of liberty, couldn\u2019t have remotely fathomed\u2014of the United States government <\/em>forcing its citizens to work longer and harder so that it can confiscate their resources\u2014their sweat, their time, and the fruits of their labor\u2014for the purpose of subsidizing a foreign government.\u00a0 <\/em>On this score, I am of one mind with millions of my fellow Americans who are equally exhausted over the fact that they are being made to part with their property and that of their families so that the rulers of other lands can live better. \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor this position, I have been maligned.\u00a0 You see, in opposing all <\/em>\u2018government welfare,\u2019 I logically oppose foreign aid to Israel<\/em>, <\/em>our long-time ally.\u00a0 But in this respect, as in so many others, I have been treated most unjustly, for far from being an enemy of Israel, I am among her greatest friends.\u00a0 Unlike my colleagues on stage tonight, I seek Israel\u2019s independence.\u00a0 <\/em>I long for her self-reliance.\u00a0 <\/em>Israel indeed has \u2018a right to exist,\u2019 but this right in turn demands of the rest of the world, including ourselves, that it regard her as the sovereign <\/em>nation that she is.\u00a0 But as long asIsrael is materially dependent uponAmerica, her sovereignty is denied.\u201d<\/p>\n On the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, Paul could be just as pointed:<\/p>\n \u201cI am no more comfortable with the idea of a nuclear bomb in the hands of the Iranian regime than is anyone else.\u00a0 A nuclear bomb is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction, and it is the most massive of such weapons.\u00a0 But before we succumb to the temptation\u2014all too common in politics\u2014to engage in hysterics, we should consider a few facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, we don\u2019t really know how close the Iranians are to obtaining nuclear energy.\u00a0 The evidence is sketchy.\u00a0 Those who insist upon the contrary speak with the same certainty, the same conviction, and the same hysteria with which they spoke a decade ago of Saddam Hussein\u2019s \u2018weapons of mass destruction.\u2019\u00a0 Of course, we now know\u2014and some of us argued then\u2014that this stock pile of biological and chemical agents, the<\/em> primary justification for a war that would last nearly nine years, did not exist. <\/em>\u00a0Hussein, some of us knew, was scarcely \u2018the imminent threat\u2019 that he was made out to be.<\/p>\n \u201cSecond, most Americans have long ago grown weary over our foreign wars.\u00a0 This explains in large measure why our party suffered crushing losses in 2006 and 2008.\u00a0 Today, over two-thirds of the country believes that the war inIraqespecially was not worth the time, the blood, and the treasure that we invested in waging it.\u00a0 Does the party that for the last few years has insisted that it has amended its ways now want to ratchet up another non-defensive, potentially interminable Middle Eastern war upon the same sort of questionable ground that was the basis for our nearly nine year \u2018slog\u2019 in Iraq?<\/p>\n \u201cThird, if, as all my colleagues seem to agree, the idea of a nuclear-armed Iranis unacceptable, then what do they <\/em>intend to do about it?\u00a0 Talk of \u2018sanctions\u2019 must be seen for the posturing that it is. \u2018Sanctions\u2019 do nothing but hurt the most defenseless and vulnerable of the citizens of the country being sanctioned.\u00a0 Far from harming dictators, the sanctions we impose upon them simply abet the harm they inflict upon their subjects.\u00a0 Furthermore, sanctions exacerbate what ill will already exists and increases<\/em> the likelihood that the sanctioned nation will resort to terrorism as a response.\u00a0 If it is really the diminution of terrorism, and not moral exhibitionism, in which we are interested, this should be a weighty consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo, if my fellow candidates are really so concerned about keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranian government\u2014something about which they have been talking for years<\/em>\u2014then it can be nothing less than war <\/em>that is on their minds.\u00a0 As president, and as a former member of the armed services, I do not share their preoccupation.\u00a0 Before I separate American families once more by sending the sons and daughters of our war wearied nation into but another bloody conflict, I will need a better reason than what we have been presented with thus far\u2014even if my colleagues insist on treating it, as they treated the evidence for Hussein\u2019s \u2018weapons of mass destruction,\u2019 as a self-evident proposition.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n On the issue of national security in general, Paul could make remarks of the following kind:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is often said, typically by my fellow partisans, that my position on national defense is \u2018weak\u2019 or \u2018na\u00efve\u2019 or \u2018isolationist.\u2019\u00a0 Of all of the slurs that have been made against me, none is further from the truth than this one.\u00a0 If my position is \u2018weak\u2019 and \u2018isolationist,\u2019 then that of my critics is \u2018bellicose\u2019 and \u2018imperialist.\u2019 The stone cold fact of the matter is that my view on national defense bears no resemblance at all to the caricature that my critics have created; moreover, it may very well be the case that I am the<\/em> sole <\/em>candidate in this race who takes national defense <\/em>seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cPreemptive wars, those wars we initiate against countries that have never attacked us, have nothing at all to do with defending <\/em>our nation.\u00a0 To suggest otherwise is to peddle in Orwellian \u2018newspeak,\u2019 it is to divest our language of its meaning\u2014a tactic of choice for dictators everywhere.\u00a0 Such wars are offensive, <\/em>most definitely not defensive.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThis approach to national security faces two insurmountable problems.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, it stands in irreconcilable conflict with the spirit of our Founding Fathers, a spirit that was much in keeping with the Christian tradition\u2019s \u2018just war\u2019 theory. According to this perspective, it is morally permissible for one government to employ violence against the subjects of another only in order to defend itself, only if it is attacked or an attack is imminent.<\/p>\n \u201cSecond, there are various contexts within which going on offense serves its purpose.\u00a0 Unfortunately for my critics\u2014and the country\u2014the context of American foreign policy is not one of them.\u00a0 The offensive wars in which they have engaged our country have most certainly not <\/em>done a thing to keep us safe.\u00a0 Far from it: they have resulted in the loss of more American lives\u2014the lives of our soldiers\u2014and rendered us a greater object of hatred than ever before.\u00a0 Also, far from \u2018spreading<\/em> liberty,\u2019 these offensive wars have spread chaos and destruction abroad while contracting <\/em>our liberty here at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNational defense requires first and foremost that we secure our <\/em>borders\u2014not the borders of foreign lands.\u00a0 This, as President, I will do immediately, for our brave men and women who have been needlessly placed in harm\u2019s way to \u2018liberate\u2019 others will instead be brought home to protect our liberties here.\u201d<\/p>\n It would also be worth it for Congressman Paul to avail himself of every occasion to remind us that active military personnel contribute to his campaign <\/em>more so than they contribute to all of the other campaigns combined. <\/em>\u00a0This includes <\/em>President Obama\u2019s campaign.\u00a0 If Ron Paul is \u201cweak,\u201d \u201cna\u00efve,\u201d and \u201cisolationist\u201d on the issues of national security and foreign policy, then a substantial number of America\u2019s Finest must be as well.<\/p>\n In my next article, I will envision Congressman Paul\u2019s response to challenges to his domestic policy.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n originally published at The New American\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, the Republican presidential contenders slugged it out inIowa.\u00a0 As usual, Ron Paul\u2019s remarks concerning American foreign policy has drawn heat. Paul is by far the most honest of the candidates.\u00a0 At the same time, he is also the most unpolished.\u00a0 In fact, chances are better than not that the former accounts for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n