Rand Paul calls for ‘arming the Kurds’ and make ‘Kurdistan’
Opponents of “nation building” and many in Turkey may be shaking their heads or their fists at Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with his new call to not only arm the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, but redraw borders and create a Kurdish nation.
“Part of the problem is the Kurds aren’t getting enough arms,” Paul told Breitbart News. “The Kurds are the best fighters. The arms are going through Baghdad to get to the Kurds and they’re being siphoned off and they’re not getting what they need. I think any arms coming from us or coming from any European countries ought to go directly to the Kurds.”
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Paul then endorsed redrawing the borders of Iraq and Syria to form a new country: “I would draw new lines for Kurdistan and I would promise them a country.”
“I think [the Kurds] would fight like hell if we promised them a country. It’s a little easier to say than it is to actually make it happen, because in order to actually draw a new country, you’d have to have the complicity of Turkey and probably Iraq a little bit as well,” the senator added. “There really is no Syria to be complicit with, but there is just a little piece of Syria — Kobani, and in there is predominantly Kurdish. I think if you did that and could get peace between the Kurds and the Turks, and then the Turks would actually fight if the Kurds would give up any claim to Turkish territory.”
Critics will be quick to point out that the Kurds also span across Iran and Turkey, two countries will not be willing to part with any real estate.
More from Paul:
There’s a thousand year war between Sunni and Shia. There’s a more recent war between radical Islam and civilized Islam and between radical Islam and the West. But it’s all about religion and has to do with different religious sects.
If you don’t understand the religion, then you won’t be able to get a solution. So for example Mosul is predominantly, vastly Sunni Muslim. No Shia army is going to be able to occupy and control Mosul. It’s going to need to be Sunni.
When people say boots on the ground, I agree—there need to be Arab boots on the ground. And they need to be able to recognize the religious part of the conflict and there can’t just be Arab boots on the ground they need to be Arab Sunni boots on the ground to take back the areas that are predominantly Sunni.
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Iraqi Kurdish region’s representative to the U.S.,told reporters at a late February briefing that her government does not plan to pursue independence in the midst of the war against the Islamic State, but does remain a lot term goal.
Moreover, Syrian Kurds would also probably dislike Paul’s vision because it would require that Kurds “give up any claim to Turkish territory.” The chief political party in Rojava, the PYD, is closely linked to the PKK, a movement of Turkish Kurds that has been battling the Turkish state for decades over its rights within that country.
Critics will point to “Paul’s hypocritical stance,” as summarized by Huff Po.
“As conservatives, we should not succumb to the notion that a government inept at home will somehow become successful abroad. That a government that can’t even deliver mail will somehow be able to create nations abroad,” Paul told his mostly younger, more libertarian audience at CPAC. “Without question we must be strong. Without question we must defend ourselves. I envision an America with a national defense unparalleled, undefeatable and unencumbered by nation building.”
