If the United States plans to join in with Saudi Arabia and join a war with Iran over the weekend bombings of Saudi oil facilities, that would be a big step that Congress must debate and decide, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., insisted Tuesday.
"I think it's always important to keep the Constitution in mind," Paul told Fox News. "The Constitution says that war is declared by Congress, not by the president, so really any kind of military action where we would bomb or target targets in a foreign land would have to be approved by Congress in advance."
Presidents can respond in matters of self-defense, Paul added, but in the case of the attacks on the Saudi assets, that was not an attack on the United States.
"Saudi Arabia is saying that the weapons are Iranian and I really trust that that probably is going to be true," said Paul, but he has not seen "incontrovertible evidence" about where the weapons really came from.
"It has become difficult to find a peaceful solution, but it doesn't always mean that it's the U.S. that has to get involved, that the US has to be bombing other countries," Paul said. "Saudi Arabia has got $83 billion dollars worth of weapons they purchased every year."
He also pointed out Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting a proxy war in Yemen, and there have been atrocities committed on both sides.
"These attacks on Saudi Arabia are a response to Saudi Arabia's involvement in Yemen," Paul said, denying he was justifying the oil field attacks.
He said he would be the first to admit that Iran makes it difficult to reach diplomatic solutions, and even if Iranian weapons were used by someone else, the country is still allowing its weapons to get into the hands of people attacking Saudi Arabia.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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