Rand Paul: ‘People who believe in Islam need to rise up’

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said Thursday that the “civilized parts of Islam” need to rise up and effectively serve as boots on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

“I think a long-lasting victory in the Middle East and a long-lasting peace that means something ultimately will have to be that the civilized parts of Islam — which I think are 90 to 95 percent of Islam — they have to rise up,” Mr. Paul said on CNN. “They need to be the boots on the ground and they need to stamp out this aberration.”

“[I’ve] met so many good people who are of the Islamic faith — they need to rise up and they need to say what ISIS is doing … does not represent our religion,” he said.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are two of Mr. Paul’s 2016 GOP presidential rivals who have been open to using U.S. ground troops in the fight against the terrorist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as part of a broader coalition.

And Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another GOP presidential candidate, plans to introduce a formal Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that will allow the U.S. to fight the group anywhere.

But Mr. Paul said if America goes over and occupies “Sunni Muslim cities,” “it’ll be another generation that will rise up within years to battle us.”

“If it’s local people, particularly Sunni Muslims, who stand up and ’say enough’s enough, ISIS doesn’t represent my religion,’ that’s when the ultimate victory comes,” he said. “But it will be … completely and entirely annihilating not just people that are part of the ISIS movement, but this aberrant ideology that I don’t think represents Islam.

“But I can’t be the spokesman for that,” he said. “People who believe in Islam need to rise up, they need to be loud, and they need to be the boots on the ground.”