Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul warned Americans Sunday that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would be more likely to start a new war than any other candidate.
"It turns out that probably the most likely candidate to take us back to war is Hillary Clinton," the Kentucky senator told NBC's "Meet the Press," reported The Hill.
Paul argued that Clinton's tendency to support regime change, as she has done for Syria, Libya and Iraq, could draw the U.S. back into a war.
"The difference is President Obama and Hillary Clinton both supported arming the Syrian rebels, the Islamic rebels against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. I wouldn't have done that. They also supported toppling [Muammar] Gaddafi in Libya," Paul said.
He added: "The interesting thing is while Obama gets blamed for not intervening enough, he's actually intervened quite a bit in the Middle East and not to our benefit."
While President George W. Bush bombed four countries during his eight year tenure - Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia - Obama has bombed seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Syria, according to PolitiFact. In the most recent intervention in Syria, Obama continued arming extremist rebels despite knowing that doing so would lead to the rise of an Islamic State group. A recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report asserted that the administration wanted an Islamic State because it would further weaken the Assad regime.
"My foreign policy is quite a bit different," Paul said. "I also don't believe in giving foreign [aid] to people who are enemies, and supplying weapons to the allies of al Qaeda, as Obama has."
Paul also became the first presidential candidate to directly criticize Saudi Arabia, one of America's closest allies in the region, for the recent execution of 47 people, according to The Washington Examiner.
Saudi Arabia said Saturday that it executed 47 "terrorists," including Shia religious leader Nimr al-Nimr, who led anti-government protests in eastern Saudi Arabia and was convicted of sedition, disobedience and bearing arms, according to Al Jazeera.
"We continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, which continues to be sort of an arsonist in that region, fanning the flames," Paul said.
