“I’m very worried about getting involved in a new war in Syria,” Paul said at the Reagan Library on Friday. “People say ‘Assad is such a bad guy.’ He is. But on the other side we have al-Qaida and now Nusra. They say there are some pro-Western people and we’re going to vet them. Well, apparently we’ve got a Senator over there who got his picture taken with some kidnappers, so I don’t know how good a job we’re going to do vetting those who are going to get the arms.”

“So there’s two ironies you have to overcome if you want to get involved in a war in Syria,” Paul continued. “The first irony is you will be allied with al-Qaida. The second irony is most of the Christians are on the other side, so you may be arming Islamic rebels who may well be killing Christians. Does that make Assad a good person? No. I don’t think there are any good people in this war, and there are some tragically innocent people who are going to be caught in the middle. But i just don’t know that arming one side is going to make the tragedy any less.”