US Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said Washington’s policy of supporting and arming insurgents fighting against the Syrian government fuelled the rise of the Takfiri group, ISIL.

US Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said Washington’s policy of supporting and arming insurgents fighting against the Syrian government fuelled the rise of the Takfiri group, ISIL (so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant).

 “We have to have a more realistic foreign policy and not a utopian one where we say, ‘Oh, we are going to spread freedom and democracy and everybody in the Middle East is going to love us.’ They are not going to love us,” Paul said Republican Party fifth debate on Tuesday night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

He added that “by arming the allies of ISIL, the rebels (who were) against (President Bashar) Assad, we created a safe space; we made that space bigger for ISIL to grow.”

The senator from Kentucky said “those who wanted a regime change had made a mistake.”

“I think when we toppled Gaddafi in Libya, I think, that was a mistake. I think ISIS grew stronger. We have a failed state and we’re more at risk,” he said.

He went on to say that “if you believe in regime change you are mistaken. In 20130, we put 600 tons of weapons – us, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – into the war against Assad. But pushing Assad back we did create a safe space (for ISIL).”