‘I don’t see an off-ramp. I don’t see a way out of this…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., broke with President Trump over his decision to order the killing of Iranian General and terrorist Qassem Soleimani, arguing Trump must seek congressional approval before acting overseas.
Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican, has also signaled his support for a new War Powers Resolution, which would limit Trump’s ability to act, because “it’s now a certainty” that Iran will attack Americans in revenge.
“This is sad,” he told CNN. “I mean, the death of Soleimani, I think, is the death of diplomacy with Iran. I don’t see an off-ramp. I don’t see a way out of this.”
Trump listened to “bad advice” from former National Security Adviser John Bolton on Soleimani, Paul continued, arguing that killing the general was an “act of war,” no matter how “imminent” the threat posed by Soleimani.
“They’ve been complaining for years about Soleimani. I mean, most of the killings that are attributed to him are, I think, are from the Iraq War. You know, ten years ago or longer. And so, I think that saying this is ‘imminent’ and saying they don’t need the permission of Congress goes against the traditions of our Constitution,” Paul said. “You would have to be brain dead to believe that we tear up the agreement, we put an embargo on you and we kill your major general, and they’re just going to crawl back to the table and say, ‘What do you want, America?'”
—@RandPaul: “I think killing a country’s major general is an act of war. I don’t think you can get away with saying it’s imminent” pic.twitter.com/VcRVsbesRH
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 6, 2020
Support for an act of war must be “overwhelming” for it to be justifiable, Paul contended.
“Whether it’s been a Democrat president, I’ve been a stickler that the way to make war rare is to make it to where you actually have to vote on it in Congress and that it has to be overwhelming,” Paul said. “There have been times—where we were attacked on 9/11, virtually everybody voted to go after those who attacked us. Same way with Pearl Harbor.
“But this is sort of a different situation where no one’s really proposing all-out war,” he added. “What we’re proposing is something that will fester and go on and on and dribs and drabs of intermittent violence for decades, if not generations.”