Rand Paul perpetuates false notion

To the editor:

Among the presidential candidates few are remotely interesting. One that does command a modicum of my respect is Rand Paul. But he perpetuates a false notion, one that is gaining traction: that the U.S. created ISIS.

While it is wise to craft a foreign policy to minimize blowback, it is unwise to articulate the evolution of Middle East totalitarianism as blowback against U.S. policy. Anyone with a sense of history should know that in the Middle East the idea of a caliphate is a powerful tool in the hands of any militant politician craven enough to make himself the Caliph. Just as socialism was the enabling philosophy of Cold War era totalitarians such as Saddam Hussein, today's enabling belief is militant Islam.

We would face a militant totalitarian state, justified by the borrowed glories of the Middle Age Caliphates, irrespective of western intervention in Iraq and the Levant. ISIS, and its ilk, are naturally occurring phenomena. At worst, the U.S. can be blamed for hitherto ignoring ISIS. Perhaps Paul, in a circumspect manner, is correct: ignoring a danger is as bad as creating it.

David Sheets

Marion