WSJ: Rand Paul, Like Obama, 'Rewriting History' on Origins of ISIS

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul's decision to blame Republican hawks for the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) was misguided and ill-advised, said The Wall Street Journal.

In an editorial Wednesday, the newspaper called out the presidential candidate for the comments he made, saying he may have been an attempting to "deflect attention from his own misjudgments."

Paul had told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday that "ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS's job even easier. They've created these people."

"An aide might want to remind Senator Paul which party's nomination he is seeking. Republicans who begin their campaigns assailing other Republicans rarely succeed — especially when the accusation is culpability for a would-be caliphate that uses executions, slavery, extortion, rape, and general terror to enforce oppression in the Middle East and North Africa, and whose ideology inspires jihadists world-wide," the Journal said.

The Journal added that even President Barack Obama largely avoids blaming former President George W. Bush for the world's problems.

"In Mr. Obama's second term, the U.S. has largely followed Mr. Paul's foreign-affairs preferences to the letter, and the result has been more chaos and disorder," the Journal wrote.

The Journal said that the origins of the Islamic State are al-Qaida in Iraq, and the security vacuum left by Obama in Iraq after the withdrawal. The rise of Islamic State was also assisted by the civil war in Syria and Obama's refusal to aid the rebels.

It was also Paul's opposition to intervention in Syria that is partly to blame for Obama's decision not to intervene, the Journal said.

"Mr. Paul seems to think he can win the GOP nomination on an anti-interventionist platform, though we think he'd be better off focusing on his domestic agenda," the Journal said.

"But if he wants to run as an Obama Republican on foreign policy, he shouldn't also adopt the Obama trick of rewriting history. It reflects poorly on his judgment as a potential Commander in Chief."

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