"Turkey is an ally, the Free Syrian Army was an ally for seven years, and the Kurds have been allies in Syria, so it's a very complicated, messy situation."

"But I think a lot of people are not acknowledging that Turkey was coming in one way or another and 50 soldiers would simply be in the way, and be a tripwire to a much worse outcome. And so I think the president was right in moving 50 soldiers out of the way of an onslaught of tens of thousands of Turkish troops.... And the president made a judgment that I think most military commanders would agree with that you don't have 50 soldiers -- you don't go to war with 50 soldiers.... Once the Turks said they were coming, it would have been foolish to leave 50 soldiers in the wake of tens of thousands of people coming across the border.... Realize the president is asking is it in our national security interest to somehow figure out how the Kurds can live with the Turks? The other interesting thing that people don't mention is all the Kurds aren't the same. The Iraqi Kurds actually are cooperating with Turkey to turn in Kurdish Workers Party officials that they see as terrorists. So the Iraqi Kurds are actually turning over some of these Kurds that allied with the Syrians. So, realize that all the Kurds aren't the same on every side of every border.... [A]s we've gotten stability in Iraq and as the Kurds have a lot of self-control in governing sort of like a province, there is actually 1,800 Turkish businesses doing business in that part of Iraq that is controlled by the Kurds. It's a prosperous oil region, and there is back and forth between the Turks and the Kurds and it actually works pretty well. But these Kurds don't actually get along with the Syrian Kurds so well. And many of the Syrian Kurds have been trying to break off part of Turkey into an independent country. It's been going on for really close to 100 years. Many of the Kurds in Syria actually were expelled or exiled from Turkey back in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. So there is this long history. And the question we have to ask is, and I have to ask, am I going to send the sons and daughters of America and mothers and fathers, and I'm to send them there to die to try to figure out how the Kurds and the Turks can get along? And I don't see that in our national interest. And we should vote on it. We should vote on it in Congress and declare war if that's what people want.... [M]y oath is to the constitution. My oath isn't as to some promise that somebody thinks we made for a Kurdish homeland. We should vote. And here's the reason why we won't vote, they don't know who to declare war on... And ultimately it's probably in the Kurds' best interests to be aligned with Assad. But as long as we continue to say Assad has to go, we're never getting to a peaceful situation. Assad is staying. And if Assad were aligned with the Kurds and the Kurds were given some semi-autonomy in their region, it could develop the way it is in Iraq currently....."

Said Rand Paul on "Meet the Press" yesterday (text with video at link).