Ron Paul says he’s ‘closer’ to Obama than GOP rivals on Iran

Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate for president who did not appear today before an annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, revealed on CNN this evening what he might have told the group.

And it’s clear from his position -- that Iran is most definitely not a looming nuclear threat -- that his view not only would have been deeply unpopular among the pro-Israel lobbying group, but it also sets him far apart from his rivals, all of whom have embraced the idea that Iran is a top-tier threat to Israel and by extension, U.S. national security.

Paul, whose isolationist philosophy has made him popular among a relatively small but intense group of supporters, said he agreed with President Obama’s statement during a news conference today that the other three Republican candidates have been talking far too casually about the possibility of a military conflict with Iran. In a speech the other day, Obama chastised them for their “loose talk” of war.

“He certainly is closer to my position than the other candidates,” Paul said, “because what the other Republicans are saying is very reckless.”

Paul has yet to win a primary contest. No matter what happens tonight, he said he has no plans to drop out of the race and will stay in the hunt for delegates. To that end, he spent the day in Idaho and North Dakota, away from the bigger, delegate-rich states that are being fought over by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Paul also slammed Arizona Sen. John McCain for urging the president to consider airstrikes against the regime in Syria, and used the buildup to the Iraq war as an example of how the nation needs to pay closer attention.

“They’re so anxious to go to war,” said Paul, who served in the U.S. Air Force as a young man. “It reminds me so much of our efforts before we went into Iraq.… Iraq was not a threat. They didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. There was no Al Qaeda. I think the same thing is going on here. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Iranians have or are on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, according to our own military people, our own CIA, according to the U.N. So I think it’s blown way out of proportion.”

A war with Iran, he said, would be financially reckless as well. “The last thing this country needs -- and our military agrees -- is another war, because ultimately, though, yes, we can beat anybody, you know, militarily. But the military operation around the world is bankrupting this country. So the greatest threat to us is a financial crisis.”

Last summer, during a presidential debate, Paul turned off many conservatives when he said he didn’t think the U.S. should try to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Tonight, he said, “I don’t want them to have a weapon, but I also lived through the 1960s.… The Soviets, a ruthless, terrible nation, we dealt with them. They had 30,000 nuclear weapons. So I think the war drums are being much louder than they need to be. We need to defend our country, but we don’t need to be the aggressor nation.”