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TIME Politics Foreign Policy Rand Paul Calls Obamas ISIS Plan Unconstitutional But he does support the intervention

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) agreed with President Barack Obamas strategy to combat the threat of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday night, but criticized Obamas methods as unconstitutional.

It doesnt in any way represent what our Constitution dictates nor what our founding fathers intended, Paul, a likely 2016 presidential contender said on Fox News. So it is unconstitutional what hes doing.

He should have come before a joint session of Congress, laid out his planas he did tonightand then called for an up or down vote on whether or not to authorize to go to war, Paul added. I think the President would be more powerful [and] the country would have been more united.

In his address to the nation Wednesday, Obama said the U.S. would expand its air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and provide funding to train and arm the Syrian opposition. He also reiterated his position that he has the executive authority to do so without congressional approval but that he would welcome congressional support as a sign of American unity.

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Rand Paul Calls Obamas ISIS Plan Unconstitutional

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), after spending six days in Guatemala this summer doing free eye surgeries, plans a similar pro bono mission for next summer, perhaps in China, he told POLITICO in an interview.

Paul, who traveled with three staff members, journalists from five news organizations, plus conservative filmmaker David Bossie, worked with six other eye surgeons. The group performed about 250 surgeries, and he did about 20 of them.

Here is a lightly edited transcript of a phone conversation with the senator, who spent 17 years as a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Ky.:

(PHOTOS: Rand Paul visits Guatemala)

POLITICO: How were surgeries different in Guatemala than back home?

PAUL: In the United States, people are obviously pleased when they get their vision back. But its not always as dramatic as this, since most of these patients [were] at least nearly blind and some virtually blind. And so to get their vision back [its ]just an amazing thing to see the smiles, the hugs, the tears the day after [when the bandages come off].

POLITICO: Whats the difference between American and Guatemalan cataracts?

PAUL: The severity. I do pro bono surgery in Kentucky, as well, and I will see some cases sometimes that are nearly as bad as these, because most people have the ability to get them out. Whereas down there, maybe, a third of the people get theirs out, because [so many] dont have the resources to do it or the doctors to do it. The biggest form of preventable blindness . is cataracts. And it mostly can be restored by removing the cataracts. They also get more sun exposure than we do, so they probably have a little higher incidence of cataracts.

(Also on POLITICO Magazine: The most interesting man in politics)

POLITICO: What was it like to travel with an entourage?

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Paul mulls China medical mission

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Paul said the U.S. had helped facilitate the growth of jihadist groups like ISIS by leading or supporting the overthrow of dictators likeSaddam Hussein in Iraq, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, a country he now called a "jihadist wonderland."

Paul's point made Hannity interrupt. Hannity suggested that, if President Barack Obama had kept a stable force of U.S. troops in Iraq, groups like ISIS wouldn't have grown.

"What you're saying is that we created this," Hannity said. "I would argue that the war [in Iraq] was won, that the surge was effective, that we had an emerging democracy albeit an imperfect one and the only thing we needed to do was keep training forces on the ground."

Hannity suggested Obama's current actions were only needed due to a "vacuum" the president previously created.

"Which the president's now doing, which would've prevented all these cities that Americans fought, died, and bled for from being taken over by ISIS. I believe the vacuum was created by President Obama's policy."

Paul said he didn't disagree with Hannity's point, but the senator pushed back slightly by saying the overriding conflict among various Islamic sects has been going on for at least 1,000 years.

"We didn't create it, but we did allow a festering of chaos when we toppled the secular dictators," Paul said. "Every time the secular dictator has failed, chaos has arisen, and radical Islam has become dominant. Radical Islam is our enemy in those countries, so we need to understand how we got here."

Hannity proceeded to play a clip of President George W. Bush from 2007, in which he said pulling out of Iraq at that point would mean "surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaida" and "increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at a later date to confront an enemy even more dangerous."

"Senator," Hannity said, "could he have been more right?"

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Rand Paul And Sean Hannity Sparred Over Whether The Rise Of ISIS Is Obama's Fault

Sen. Rand Paul said President Barack Obama made one important point in his remarks on Wednesday saying that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was neither Islamic nor a state, but questioned the constitutionality of the presidents strategy.

Ultimately, civilized Islam will have to step up. We need to do everything we can to protect ourselves, Im all in for saying we have to combat ISIS, Paul said Wednesday on Hannity. So I think it is important not only for the American public but for the world and for the Islamic world to point out that this is not a true form of Islam, this is an abhorrent form.

Paul pushed back against whether Obama was trying to diminish their importance, saying instead that the president was aiming to underscore that ISIL is not a true or accurate depiction of Islam. The Kentucky Republican repeated that the U.S. will need Muslim nations in the area as allies in the region in the fight against ISIL.

But they have to step up, because frankly they have been allowing too much of this to go on, Paul said, adding that he thinks Saudi Arabia has aided and abetted the rise of ISIS.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama: U.S. chasing ISIL 'wherever they exist')

Paul said the president made one important point in this distinction.

Now lets make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISILs victims have been Muslim, Obama said in his address Wednesday. And ISIL is certainly not a state It is recognized by no government, nor by the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple.

However, Paul did hit the president on his handling of foreign policy, saying the country is absolutely not safer.

Libya is a disaster. Libya is a jihadist wonderland, the jihadists are swimming in the embassy swimming pool, Paul said, who also pointed to Syria and Iraq.

(Also on POLITICO: Hill mixed on Obama speech)

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Paul to 'civilized Islam': Step up

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has arguably been the Republican Party's most vocal advocate of a more cautious and restrained approach to foreign policy and military intervention abroad. But his base of support doesn't lean as libertarian as you might think.

A couple of data sets show why. First is asomewhat surprising finding in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Reid J. Epstein writes:

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 44% of the people who hold a favorable view of the Kentucky Republican want the U.S. to become more involved in world affairs. About a third of Mr. Pauls supporters said the country should become less involved and 17% said the current level of engagement is appropriate.

In other words, among Paul fans, there are many hawks, despite his cautionary rhetoric when it comes to intervening abroad.

Second, consider new polldata from the Pew Research Center indicating the Republican Party -- and more notably, tea party Republicans -- has grown much more concerned in recent months that the government is not doing enough to protect the country from terror threats.

A November 2013 Pew poll, coming in the wake of the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about sweeping government surveillance, showed the GOP was evenly divided between concerns about civil liberties and safety. The tea party, in which Paul is a major star, was much more concerned about civil liberties.

But as worries about the threat posed by the Islamic State and unrest in Syria and Iraq have risen, so to has anxiety that the government's anti-terror policies are not doing enough to protect America, as the following chart shows.

Last fall, just 33 percent of tea party Republicans said they were more concerned the government's anti-terror policies were not going far enough to protect Americans than they were about them infringing on civil liberties. That number has shot up to 59 percent. Among all Republicans, it has jumped by 23 points.Democrats and independents have moved more modestly in the direction of concerns about about safety.

All of which leads us to Paul's notably hawkish position on the Islamic State, which caught some by surprise considering his careful views on intervention, but are consistent with the political demands of the day.

Paul wondered why people were caught off guard when they learned he is in favor of striking against the Islamic State, at least with congressional approval.

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Rand Pauls base is more hawkish than meets the eye