The rise of Islamic State extremists in the Middle East can be traced to Republicans who backed arming fighters in the region, presidential candidate Rand Paul said in an interview broadcast Wednesday.
“IS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by IS,” said Paul, a Kentucky Republican, in an interview with MSNBC.
“Everything they have talked about in foreign policy they have been wrong about for 20 years,” he said, Bloomberg reported.
Paul who is running in the middle of a crowded 2016 Republican presidential field, said members of his party “trapped inside the Beltway” may paint him as outside the mainstream on issues like foreign policy, but his message had resonated with many Republican voters.
The senator said the party also needed to be more diverse by appealing to black, Hispanic, and young voters.
“I’m the only one out there saying the Patriot Act went too far,” Paul said, noting that a majority of young voters oppose the government’s surveillance programs.
Paul earlier this month blocked a Senate measure that would have reauthorized expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, and this week said he will press for a vote on ending bulk records collection by the National Security Agency.
