The Islamic State's brutality has reconfigured the senator's foreign policy stance.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has called for congressional approval to "destroy ISIS militarily."
Kentucky's libertarian-leaning Republican senator says neither label properly suits him.
Paul to Fox News Wednesday:
“I'm neither an isolationist or interventionist. I'm someone that
believes in the Constitution and believes that America should have a
strong national defense and believes that we should defend ourselves,
but when we do it, we should do it the way the Constitution intended.”
As urgency in confronting the barbaric Islamic State extremist group continues to build, Paul's foreign policy view is undergoing an early test, and that's required a bit of a recalibration.
[READ: Would Congress Act Against the Islamic State?]
In June, Paul told National Review the possibility of the Islamic State – formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS – establishing safe havens in Iraq from which it could target the U.S. seemed to be "a bit of a stretch." In Iowa around that same time, he was careful in his comments about how to react to the emerging crisis, ruling out U.S. ground troops in Iraq.
Now he's calling for congressional approval to "destroy ISIS militarily" – language that could be easily uttered by the more hawkish elements of his party that he's previously locked horns with. If not a full substantive switch on policy, it's certainly a difference in tone.
One of Paul's foreign policy advisers, Richard Burt, essentially conceded to National Review that the Islamic State's rampage has shifted the debate.
“I don’t think two months ago any of us really had a clear understanding of the momentum this group had," Burt said.
But the crisis has also allowed Paul a moment to defy the "isolationist" tag by stressing that there are times when the U.S. needs to flex its singular strength abroad.
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He remains against ground troops – "I still would like to see the ground troops and the battles being fought by those who live there," he told Sean Hannity on the host's radio show this week – but is now voicing a more muscular response in line with many of his GOP colleagues.
So what's the Rand doctrine?
Burt explains it to National Review as "selective" interventionism.
How successfully Paul articulates that vision – sandwiched between neoconservative hawks and a growing cluster of anti-interventionist voices – will do a lot to determine his ultimate success on a Republican presidential primary stage.
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