Rand Paul Quotes

Back in the 1950s, America set out to intervene in Syria, liberate the people from a corrupt elite, and bring about a new democracy. They did this with the best of intentions, but it led to disaster. And out of that disaster, the Assad regime rose to power.

Iraq is part of a legitimate American effort not to have democracy everywhere but to have democracy somewhere.

Anybody who believes that we can democratize Iran, Iraq and Syria by military force is living in a fantasy world.

The U.S. military will be stepping into a morass. Iraq presents as unpromising a breeding ground for democracy as any in the world. It has never really known democracy or even legitimate, centralized rule for any great duration.

For 60 years, my country. The United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy … in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

The Bush Administration went into the Middle East thinking it was spreading democracy. Instead they spread sectarianism.

Every time we have toppled a secular dictator (in the Middle East), it has been replaced by a chaos and the rise of radical Islam…. Intervention has unintended consequences

No one in Washington has yet made a credible case that a post-Assad Syria can hold together.

I think it's a huge mistake. I think regime change in Syria, and this is what - I've been saying this for several years now. In 2013 when we first went in, I said, you are going to give arms to the allies of al Qaida, to radical jihadists? That's crazy.

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.

After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.

No one will remember that President Obama supported the Arab Spring if it eventually fails and the region collapses back into the political Dark Ages. If we actively engage these movements with advice, with money, and, when necessary, with military force, then we get a vote in how it all turns out.

The idea that we could live with another 20 years of stagnation in the Middle East that breeds this radicalism and breeds terrorism is, I think, just unacceptable- especially after September 11th.

It is overly optimistic to think that we can take a country that has emerged from under a totalitarian regime with its institutions of civil society and create a beacon of democracy within five years. If we try to transform Iraq into a democracy, we will need more and more troops over time because we will have to quell nationalistic revolts.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

Advancing democracy does not always foster political stability.

Washington seems to think that they will be welcomed with open arms in Iraq, but that they shouldn’t count on it. It is foolish to think of creating a modern democracy in an artificial country with a divided society like Iraq. Do you realize that, by invading Iraq, they might yet precipitate a civil war.

The so called “Arab Spring” … is really a situation which is creating more threats so far than positive incentives.

To impose justice, stability, and cooperation on oppressed or ungoverned nations is usually a tall order. It is hardly ever done cheaply, especially against nationalist resistance

Where the West has intervened in African domestic affairs, such as it did in Libya 2011, the country became a cradle of extremism that exports weapons, jihadists, and ideology to the rest of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

If there is a horrific attack on this country like 9/11, the American people will demand we go to war and settle accounts with those who did it. But America's appetite for intervention, for nation building, for democracy crusades, is fully sated.

Our actions to overthrow secular dictators in Iraq and Libya, and attempts now to do the same in Syria, have resulted in tremendous loss of life, failed nations, and even worse humanitarian crises while strengthening the very terrorist organizations that have declared war on America.

If anything, what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam set back prospects for democratic reform in the region, as many came to associate political change with chaos.

I don't believe in regime change, certainly not in the Middle East.