Senator Paul is playing a very smart game when it comes to foreign policy: his latest venture is very much like his Ukraine plan, which involved not "letting Vladimir Putin get away with it" – and also cutting off all aid to Ukraine. Seems like only Jonathan Chait caught on to that one, but so far I’m the only one who seems to have caught on to Sen. Paul’s latest curve ball: his "pro-Israel" bill that would wind up costing the Israelis a pretty penny.
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Very clever – the "Stand With Israel" Act satisfies practically every constituency important to the Senator’s presidential prospects. The very name is enough to fool the snake-handling yahoos whose pastors liken standing with Israel to standing up for Jesus. Hey, they’re cutting off aid to those terrorist heathens! Yippee! You got a problem with that?
Informed that Israel may wind up paying the tab, this same yahoo might very well look you in the eye and ask: Well, what’s wrong with that?
No wonder AIPAC is opposing the "Stand With Israel" Act.
Another key constituency the bill should satisfy: libertarians. In calling for an end to aid, it fulfills a central requirement of libertarian orthodoxy in that it cuts government expenditures – and lessens US involvement in a matter that is none of our business. In this it also satisfies another key constituency: the overwhelming majority of Americans who, if polled, would support the Senator’s bill overwhelmingly. Foreign aid being the least popular government program imaginable, these same Americans would also end or at least severely curtail aid to Israel. But that will come later, after the ground has been prepared.
This is a replay of Sen. Paul’s memorable campaign to end aid to Egypt – which, in retrospect, was a prescient move, one for which he isn’t getting the credit he’s due. While he promoted it by declaring that not one penny ought to be going to "countries that burn our flag," it’s one of history’s little ironies that the current flag-burners are also military autocrats – and the aid keeps flowing on account of that presidential waiver.
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