Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Tx.) presented his reasons for why “radical Islamists” want to attack the U.S. to a crowd of supporters in Iowa Saturday.
The Texas congressman claims that U.S. military involvement in the Middle East is placing the country at risk for future attacks on American soil. Mr. Paul’s foreign policy rhetoric throughout his presidential campaign has consistently called for less U.S. involvement in foreign countries. In several presidential debates and interviews he has said that he would essentially zero out all U.S. aid to foreign countries, a policy that other Republican presidential candidates have criticized him for.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for instance, has questioned Mr. Paul’s foreign policy in terms of cutting aid to Israel.
The Texas Republican though is still calling for less aid to foreign countries because of his claim that it would help to drastically reduce federal spending.
“Some of these things you can do in coalitions, because if you talk about foreign policy, you can bring people from left and right and say, well, we have to change our foreign policy and civil liberties,” Mr. Paul said Saturday, in a statement obtained by The Des Moines Register.
“I don’t think that in order to get these benefits that we have to compromise our principles, we just need to bring people together,” the Texas Rep. added.
The comments came during a town hall style meeting in Marshalltown, Iowa. Mr. Paul will also attend the 8 p.m. ABC News/Des Moines Register presidential debate in Des Moines Saturday night.
The Texas congressman has surged in popularity among Iowa voters in recent weeks, a poll of likely Iowa caucus voters last week showed him in a statistical tie with Mr. Romney.
His views differ greatly from nearly all of the other Republican candidates, which has seemingly helped him build a very strong online following and should help him in the primary elections.
“The No. 1 reason why the people from the Middle Eastern countries and the radical Islamists want to attack us is because we’re in their country,” Mr. Paul posited at the Marshalltown town hall style campaign event.
“That should not be that hard to understand,” Mr. Paul added.
