Sen. Rand Paul rejects Romney’s contempt for the Constitution:

I do not yet know if I will find a Romney presidency more acceptable on foreign policy. But I do know that I must oppose the most recent statements made by Mitt Romney in which he says he, as president, could take us to war unilaterally with Iran, without any approval from Congress.

There was never any doubt that Sen. Paul would oppose what Romney said about war powers and Iran, and he states the constitutionalist objections to Romney’s position very well. This statement addresses some of the concerns I have expressed in the last two weeks, and it should repair some of the damage done when Paul seemed to give Romney’s foreign policy a free pass. I had assumed all along that Paul would object when Romney took reckless positions on foreign policy, which is why it was troubling when he seemed to be doing the opposite of that in his endorsement remarks. Now that Romney has once again confirmed what antiwar conservative and libertarian critics have been saying about him from the beginning, I hope we won’t have to hear any more about Romney’s prudence or maturity in foreign policy. If there were evidence that supported this assessment of Romney’s policy views, that would be different, but there isn’t any.

Sen. Paul is right to view Obama’s foreign policy as an aggressive one, so I’m not sure why he claims not to know yet whether he would find Romney’s foreign policy to be more acceptable. On every issue, Romney has attacked Obama’s policies for being insufficiently aggressive, too accommodating, and too cautious. Yes, Romney is currently just a candidate, so he is free to say things without having to consider the consequences. It’s possible that he might govern in a dramatically different fashion than he has said he would, but it doesn’t seem likely. Romney would be the first to insist that “Obama is less aggressive internationally than his predecessors,” and Romney would also insist that he intends to correct that supposed flaw by being even more aggressive than Obama. His most recent statement on Iran makes that clear. I don’t doubt that Sen. Paul will oppose a Romney administration whenever necessary, but I also don’t doubt that Sen. Paul’s opposition to Romney’s policies will be required early and often.