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GOP presidential candidate and Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul alleged that ISIS has received and is currently operating with U.S. weapons in their military campaigns in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking to Newsmax TV, Paul said his assumption is based on the fact that "Most of these people do not have the sophistication to make arms so they get the arms from other folks."

Paul is a self-described libertarian and advocates for a heavily isolationist U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the Middle East. He has criticized Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for being a “neo-conservative,” especially in foreign policy. Clinton is notoriously hawkish on issues of intervention in the Middle East, despite her recent tac to the left--Clinton voted for the Iraq war in 2003, although she told reporters in May 2015 that she considers it a mistake.

Clinton has also pledged undying support to the Israeli government and in a recent article written for the Jewish Daily Forward, she asserted her plan to reengage Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his ultra-nationalist rightwing base and U.S. funded policies of attrition against Palestinians. Clinton failed to make mention of continuing Israeli settlement in the West Bank, illegal under international law, and she referred to Palestinians as terrorists while ignoring the prominent strain of Jewish terrorists committing violence on Palestinians.

Rand Paul is by no means the voice of reason regarding U.S. involvement in the Middle East, but he does make a coherent point about ISIS’ capabilities. Paul stated on Newsmax TV, "Right now ISIS has a billion dollars' worth of U.S. Humvees, they have a billion dollars in cash they stole from us and they pay their soldiers with but they have anti-tank weapons and missiles they fire from the shoulder that were basically given to people in the Syrian civil war and taken by ISIS."

The claim about stolen money is disputed, but Paul’s comments do draw attention to the U.S.’s ambiguity on providing weapons to rebels in Syria and other ongoing armed conflicts like the one in Yemeni people and the Saudi Arabian-backed government forces.

The only consistency in U.S. Middle East policy is heavy-handed support for states with severe human rights violations--UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and before the regimes fell, Egypt, Libya and even Iraq--in the interest of jockeying to hold leverage over the states and regimes in power.

As Paul states, U.S. intervention in the Middle East does create power vacuums, like in Libya after Muammar Ghadaffi was ousted, in part due to the support of a U.S. and NATO-imposed no-fly-zone and naval blockade. But intervention rarely leads to government reform. Instead, in case after case, a military quagmire ensues in which the largest casualties are those of civilians, and eventually the United States withdraws, leaving behind political instability.

A recent attempt by the U.S. to bolster rebel forces in Syria fighting Assad and ISIS failed miserably after spending $500 million to train and arm rebels. These policies are majorly flawed because they ignore sectarian alliances of the region, and are not carried with a long-term strategy of real solidarity with the people the U.S. claims to help.

Rand Paul criticized the failure, but provided no alternative.

The United States is set to begin a weapon and ammunition airdrop campaign to a group called the Syrian Arab Coalition, fighting ISIS in the north of ISIS stronghold Raqqa.

Speaking to Agence France Presse on Thursday, 15 October an anonymous Pentagon official said of the rebels, “As they demonstrate results, the packages will get heavier and U.S. strikes will occur in places that are advantageous to their operations."

Describing the program as “performance-based,” the official continued saying "We've left the door open to more things to include some weaponry." But, the official warned, "If they fail ... if the things fall into the wrong hands, then those particular groups will be cut off."

According to the outright evidence, Paul’s claim that ISIS is using U.S. weaponry is not unfounded, but something of a sideshow. As long as there is a fight in the Middle East, the U.S. will be supporting some group it considers possible to install as a puppet-regime, so if weapons wind up with ISIS, who will really be surprised?