Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul slammed President Donald Trump’s strike on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday.
“I hate this. I hate that this is where we are going,” Paul said on air. “I have been someone who has been for engagement, but there was much less killing, there was much less violence after the Iran agreement.”
“In fact, there was a lull, a period in which I think we were headed towards a much more stable situation with Iran, and now I think that’s gone. And I think it may be gone for a lifetime.”
The Kentucky senator also said that while he disagreed with the Iran deal, the Trump administration could have tried to build on it.
“It wasn’t perfect, and I was a critic of the Iran agreement, however, I think it was a big mistake to pull out of the Iran agreement. We should have tried to build upon the Iran agreement,” he said.
“We did that … we placed an embargo where Iran was not allowed to sell any goods internationally, including their main export of oil. An active embargo is like an act of war. To top that off, we’ve now killed one of their major generals.”
This comes after Paul criticized “feckless intermittent eruptions of violence w/ no clear mission for our soldiers” on Twitter following the strike.
Paul has been one of the major voices for anti-interventionist foreign policy during the Trump administration. At times, Paul has cozied up to the Trump White House, defending the president stridently against impeachment efforts against him over Ukraine. (RELATED: Rand Paul Says He ‘Probably Will’ Out Trump Whistleblower)