Rand Paul Quotes

There's a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer.

We need a regime change in this country.... If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.

I personally think President [Hosni] Mubarak, who's done a lot for Egypt, should acknowledge that his time has come and step down right away.

I voted against him the first time because I thought he didn't have enough international experience. I voted for him the second time because I was proven wrong.

[George W. Bush] has balls. And he's a leader. Unfortunately his balls and leadership are in the service of shitty ideas. We need his balls on someone who thinks right.

The idea of foreign policy realism, I think, fits more neatly with President Trump. And with John McCain, the neoconservative label of let's make the world safe for democracy and we're going to topple every regime hasn't worked.

I fail to see what dangers surrounding states can see in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states are really firmly seated in their saddles.

Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

I don't think a monarchy led by 75- and 80-year-old men [Saudi Arabia] in today's modern world is really sustainable.

The Liberal Party has dealt with the spill motion and now this matter is behind us, we think that when you elect a government, when you elect a prime minister, you deserve to keep that government and that prime minister until you have a chance to change your mind.

I think it was right to remove Saddam Hussein. I think it was the right decision then and I still think it was right now.

I've been reading [Nikita] Khrushchev Remembers. I know he's a bit of a lad himself - but he seemed to think that making a religion out of an individual was bad; that doesn't seem to be part of the basic Communist idea. Still people are people, that's the difficulty.

At this moment, I don't think people would back the old-fashioned Marxist-Leninist ideas of FARC. But I do hope that the rebels will continue to pursue their agenda by legal means and not through violence.

It's just a matter of time before we go into Iraq and get Saddam Hussein. I think just before Bush falls below 50 percent, that's when we'll be going.

I also think regime change in Syria is a bad idea. And that's an ongoing question. It's one of the things I like about Donald Trump, one of the reasons I endorsed him is he thinks regime change is a mistake. But John Bolton thinks completely the opposite. They are diametric opposites.

I think you know what's new about this the Democrat Party not liking the Russians. That's a first. The Democrat Party not liking the idea the Soviet Union back together.

Few knew in 2000 that Bush was going to end up with neoconservatives all over the place. And once 9/11 happened, I think it's fair to say that eight or nine neocons have had an enormous influence. The whole solution to every problem was to go after Iraq. This had been a neoconservative mantra for ten years. There was no secret about it.

Particularly when we are a country where leaders turn over every few years and - I mean, in Russia, Vladimir Putin has been in charge for 17 years and counting, right? That's a disadvantage for us in terms of knowing the players, having a long-term plan, right?

Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.

I'll do anything to try to prevent John Bolton from getting any position, because I think his world view is naive. He believes we're going to spread democracy. We're going to topple governments everywhere and they're going to elect Thomas Jefferson. That's not the way it works in the Middle East.

Political figures who talk a lot about liberty and freedom invariably turn out to mean the freedom to not pay taxes and discriminate based on race; freedom to hold different ideas and express them, not so much.

If democracy succeeds in Egypt, other countries will follow. Should the democratic experiment in Egypt be hijacked by the military or anti-democratic Islamist groups, the revolution will fail elsewhere.

Donald Trump's views on Vladimir Putin, I think, are troubling. And I don't think he fundamentally understands exactly who Vladimir Putin is or exactly what he's trying to do. So, these are the kinds of things that I think in detail you need to begin to understand.

I said, ‘There’s one idea I’ve been carrying in my hip pocket for 35 years. It’s Woodrow Wilson.’

I think Churchill would be appalled at the Thatcher government.