This propensity not just to disagree with others on foreign policy but also to denigrate them (and often to mischaracterize their actions or positions) is a staple of Paul’s remarks. In a January piece for The National Interest, he complained about name-calling in foreign-policy disputes: “It seems everybody’s got a name for themselves and even nastier names for their opponents. . . . If you don’t label yourself first, your enemies will.” Then he proceeded to engage in . . . name-calling. Criticizing the “neoconservatives” who “preach a doctrine that is hostile to diplomatic engagement,” he wrote: “To this crowd, everyone who doesn’t agree with them is the next Chamberlain.”

Again and again, he characterizes his opponents as flat-out warmongers, such as those “within the Christian community [who] are such great defenders of the promised land and the chosen people that they think war is always the answer, maybe even preemptive war.” Choices are always binary in his world — one must either follow his way of diplomacy or, as in his Heritage speech, take the position that “war is the only option.” In a recent speech at the Center for the National Interest, he built the same militaristic straw man. Those who favor bigger defense forces and more robust postures, he said, have the attitude that “diplomacy is distrusted and war is, if not the first choice, the preferred option.”

The worst warmongers in Paul World are always the nefarious “neocons,” sometimes directly associated with Israel, who are blamed for such a wide assortment of ills and bad motives that an uninformed listener might think they are more dangerous to world peace than the Soviets ever were.