Commentary - James Kirchick: Here’s what Rep. Ron Paul meant and why he’s wrong

“Policies over many years caused an elicited hatred toward us, so somebody was willing to commit suicide,” the Texas Republican said. “For instance, the occupation with our military troops on their holy land in Saudi Arabia, bombing a Muslim country for 10 years, putting on sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of people. So that caused that anger.”

That American foreign policy angers Muslims is irrefutable, and the Republican presidential candidates (along with the Democratic ones, as well) ought to have the honesty to admit it. But what ultimately matters is whether that anger is justified.

After all, that America does not execute gays or force women to wear veils also angers Muslims — our pluralism is, to them, indication of a “decadent culture” — but aside from Dinesh D’Souza, one would be hard pressed to find Americans sympathetic to this point of view.

So the burden lies on Paul (as well as those commentators who claim that he somehow represents a welcome breath of fresh air to the GOP) to identify specific aspects of our foreign policy that are wrongheaded. This is something Paul has not yet done.

Specifically, Paul thinks that our bombing Iraq after the first Gulf War, the sanctions we placed on Saddam Hussein’s regime and the troops we based in Saudi Arabia to keep Hussein contained were all unwise. To understand why Paul’s understanding of our Iraq policy is so dangerously wrong, a little history is in order.

Following the first Gulf War, Britain, France and the United States established no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. The purpose of these military patrols was to prevent Saddam from finishing the genocidal havoc he wished to visit upon the Kurds (in the north) and Shi’a Muslims (in the south). If these no-fly zones did not exist, then Saddam would have killed an untold number of innocent people.

The sanctions were established as a punishment on the Saddam regime for failing to comply with more than a dozen United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding weapons inspections.

Saddam could have easily avoided sanctions by allowing uninhibited access to weapons inspectors. He did not. And when that same international community tried to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people by implementing the oil-for-food program, Saddam cynically manipulated the system at their expense.

Outraged that Paul would insinuate American responsibility for 9/11, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani asked Paul to retract his comments. Paul then qualified his critique of American foreign policy with, “OK, the Americans didn’t do anything to cause it.”

But what is the purpose of launching into a bromide against sanctions and the no-fly-zones other than to argue that these policies caused, in Paul’s own words, “blowback” against us?

Of course, the United States should always take into account how its foreign policies will be perceived abroad. But we should never let popularity stand in the way of doing what is in our country’s national interest. Weakening the Saddam regime and preventing it from launching more genocide was in our national interest.

America has angered more than just Muslims over the course of history. We also angered the Nazis when we fought them on the Western Front. We angered the Japanese when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We angered the Soviets when we refused to let them conquer the entirety of Berlin.

We were right in angering these regimes. The wisdom of our actions was determined not just by global perception (and, no doubt, we gained respect by standing up to totalitarians), but ultimately by the degree to which our policies protected America and advanced our interests abroad.

Certainly, it is in our interest to be liked, but not at the expense of our security. Furthermore, you cannot be liked by everyone all the time, as Paul and his isolationist supporters seem to think would happen were we to just keep to ourselves.

So the Republicans should welcome Paul to their future debates. Not only to give his ideas a platform, but also to expose just how silly — and dangerous — they truly are.

Examiner columnist James Kirchick is assistant to the editor in chief of The New Republic.