Does Rand Paul Think the Beheading of American Journalists Justifies War Against ISIS?

On Friday, as Robby Soave

noted this afternoon, Rand Paul
told the Associated Press that if he were president, he “would
lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national
security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS
militarily.” But at a
Q&A session in Dallas earlier that same day, the Kentucky
senator seemed deliberately noncommittal on the question of whether
ISIS is in fact “a threat to our national security.” Asked what the
“strategy” should be with regard to ISIS, he said:

I think the strategy has to be that you have an open debate in
the country over whether or not ISIS is a threat to our national
security. And it’s not enough just to say they are. That’s usually
what you hear—you hear a conclusion. People say, “Well, it’s a
threat to our national security.” That’s a conclusion. The debate
has to be: Are they a threat to our national security?

Our national security doesn’t have to be just stopping at our
borders. It can include our embassy personnel. It can include our
soldiers. It can include citizens, and people involved in business,
and journalists—things like that. So I think it is a real
debate.

What I would do, if you want a strategy, you have to go to
the American people. You have to go to Congress. I would convene a
joint session of Congress, and I would ask for permission from
Congress and say, “These are the reasons why I think ISIS is a
threat to us. This is why we should be involved.” If [President
Obama] doesn’t do that, then I think he doesn’t galvanize support,
we look weak to the world, and in the end we don’t really have a
strategy.

By and large, as I will argue in my column tomorrow, Paul
strikes a much more cautious note on foreign intervention than
national politicians typically do. But his definition of “national
security” to include the safety of Americans in other countries
potentially opens the door to military action anywhere U.S.
citizens live. That does not necessarily mean Paul would treat the
beheading of American journalists as a casus belli, but it sounds
like he might.