Rand Paul to Rick Perry on Iraq: Get some new glasses

A spat over Republican foreign policy that’s been brewing between Rand Paul and Rick Perry has taken a turn to the tense, as the Kentucky senator told the Texas governor: Get some new glasses to help with your political viewpoints.

Mr. Perry first ignited the fire with a Washington Post criticism of Mr. Paul, calling the senator’s isolationist foreign policies harmful to America’s interests. Then Mr. Paul fanned the flames further in a piece published by Politico Magazine.

There, Mr. Paul said of the governor: “Apparently his new glasses haven’t altered his perception of the world, or allowed him to see it any more clearly. With 60,000 foreign children streaming across the Texas border, I am surprised Governor Perry has apparently still found time to mischaracterize and attack my foreign policy,” Mediaite reported.

Mr. Paul said his personal notions about Middle East affairs aren’t so far off from Mr. Perry’s, especially for Iraq and Syria, where available options are limited.

“I would argue that if anything, my ideas for this crisis are both stronger and not rooted simply in bluster,” Mr. Paul wrote, Mediaite reported. Their major difference?

Mr. Perry would send troops to the region; Mr. Paul would not.

He wrote: “I ask Governor Perry: How many Americans should send their sons or daughters to die for a foreign country — a nation the Iraqis won’t defend for themselves? How many Texan mothers and fathers will Governor Perry ask to send their children to fight in Iraq?”