Opinion Rand Paul's Uncertain Trumpet Despite his campaign slogan, it's not clear where Rand Paul stands.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

Who would have thought back in 2010 when Rand Paul won election to the Senate as a libertarian champion that the first media blowup in a Paul presidential campaign wouldn’t be over his past support for privatizing Social Security, or his misgivings over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but over his flip-flops?

There used to be a time when Paul’s inevitable presidential campaign offered the prospect of a stark GOP debate over principle on foreign policy. Not anymore.


We now have the “new” Rand Paul. He entered politics as his father’s son on foreign policy and has emerged as a presidential candidate who wants to be known as the second coming of James Baker.

To believe Paul’s latest posture, he’s a me-too Republican on foreign policy, only a little less so — the most-hawkish dove, or most-dovish hawk, in the Republican field, depending on the day.

Forget all about how he once accused Dick Cheney of starting the Iraq War to benefit Halliburton. There’s nothing to see here other than a committed devotee of George Kennan.

This has been an awkward and often unconvincing transition. To his critics, Rand Paul is libertarianism’s John Kerry.

The senator got snippy on Wednesday when Savannah Guthrie of the “Today” show asked him about his changing position on Iran. She pointed out that Paul said in 2007 that Iran is not a threat. Paul responded that 2007 was “a long time ago,” as if the statute of limitations on prior positions expires long before the passage of eight years.

One wonders how far Paul would push this. In 2012, Paul was the lone vote against a Senate resolution in favor of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and against containment. But, hey, that was three long years ago — when he was young and irresponsible, he was young and irresponsible.

When Paul has tried to explain that one, it’s been a head-scratcher. On the Senate floor, he made the Delphic pronouncement: “While it is unwise to say that we will contain a nuclear Iran, I think it equally unwise to say we will never contain Iran.”

Maybe it’s best not to say anything about Iran at all.

In 2014, he clarified by stating his unequivocal opposition to containing Iran, despite his opposition to saying we won’t contain Iran. He defended this as “strategic ambiguity,” and it was certainly ambiguous.

It turns out he has a knack for ambiguity. Paul has made a point of supporting the Iran negotiations, but signed Sen. Tom Cotton’s letter meant to put a damper on the negotiations, while justifying that letter as strengthening Obama’s hand in the negotiations and at the same time opposing new sanctions designed to strengthen Obama’s hand.

Give him this: Rand Paul is a new departure for libertarianism. Usually, libertarians scold everyone else for their lack of purity from an Olympian height of disdain. Paul won’t have that problem. On foreign policy, he is struggling for coherence, let alone purity.

Not too long ago, it seemed that Paul was ready to pull the party his way on national security, rather than having to play catch-up with the party’s drift in the other direction.

In retrospect, the GOP opposition to bombing Syria after President Barack Obama’s “red line” threat in 2013 was the high-water mark for a Paulite impulse within the party. Soon enough, the red-line fiasco became a watchword for Obama’s weakness and events — the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rise of ISIL, the diplomatic strains with Israel — revived a traditional GOP reflex toward toughness.

Rand Paul says he has simply evolved, but it is rare for any politician to “evolve” in a direction that isn’t more politically convenient for him.

This gets to the difference between Ron and Rand Paul, of course. For Ron, the electoral pointlessness of his presidential runs was the point. He was a conviction politician who ran to generate support for a cause, not to win anything.

Rand believes he’s in a different game, which is why he’s increasingly a House-broken libertarian. His attacks on career politicians are particularly tinny as he maneuvers his way around the rules in Kentucky to run for president and reelection to the Senate at the same time, lest he face the prospect all politicians naturally dread: relinquishing office.

Nevertheless, Rand Paul’s practicality compared to his father is a good thing. Libertarianism is a significant strain within the GOP and the less cranky and more serious its chief representative is, the better. On issues like criminal justice, Paul has been creative in urging his party to rethink its stale orthodoxies.

Yet it’s not clear what Paul will get from all of this. He is in a tough field, much tougher than his dad ran against in 2008 and 2012, and faces the risk of underperforming him, even as he compromises — and obfuscates — to try to make himself more viable.

The new Rand Paul will be hard-pressed to escape the old Rand Paul.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.