On Friday night, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), speaking at the Reagan President Library, bashed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for McCain’s visit to Syria and encouragement of US involvement in the country’s civil war. “I’m very worried about getting involved in a new war in Syria,” Paul stated. “People say, ‘Assad is such a bad guy.’ He is. But on the other side we have al Qaeda and now Nusra. They say there are some pro-Western people and we’re going to vet them. Well, apparently we’ve got a Senator over there who got his picture taken with some kidnappers, so I don’t know how good a job we’re going to do vetting those who are going to get the arms.”

Paul is an advocate of isolationism with regard to Syria, while McCain has stated that the United States should establish a no-fly zone to get started in Syria. “There’s two ironies you have to overcome if you want to get involved in a war in Syria,” Paul stated. “The first irony is you will be allied with al Qaeda. The second irony is most of the Christians are on the other side, so you may be arming Islamic rebels who may well be killing Christians. Does that make Assad a good person? No. I don’t think there are any good people in this war, and there are some tragically innocent people whoa re going to be caught in the middle. But I just don’t know that arming one side is going to make the tragedy any less.”