WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is showing signs of trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials ahead of a likely run for president in 2016, establishing himself as a leader in the debate over an authorization to fight the Islamic State and backing away from previous views that critics called too isolationist.
But Paul isn’t doing all that fast enough for one key Republican donor, or for the Middle Eastern group which that donor and many other Republicans support.
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The Kurds in Iraq and in Syria share an ethnic background but are divided politically. Both groups are fighting the Islamic State in their respective countries. Though U.S. cooperation with the Syrian Kurds is growing, it’s not yet comparable to the long and sometimes complex relationship between Washington and the Iraqi Kurds. That relationship became even stronger last summer as the U.S. helped defend the Iraqi Kurdish capital.
The Obama administration slowly ramped up the provision of military equipment to the Iraqi Kurds during late summer and fall last year. A State Department spokeswoman told HuffPost on Tuesday that the U.S. has already begun training and arming Kurdish brigades using funds approved in recently passed defense legislation. She noted the assistance the central Iraqi government has provided the Kurds, as well as the equipment passed to them by the anti-Islamic State coalition, and said legal restrictions prevent the U.S. from selling military equipment directly to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Kurdish leaders have suggested that a Republican-controlled Congress would be more willing to bypass Baghdad in order to strengthen the flow of U.S. support to them.
