Marco Rubio Disagrees With Rand Paul, Wants Open AUMF Against IS

Appearing on the Kelly File" on Fox News on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and a possible Republican presidential hopeful in 2016, called for a wide ranging Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Islamic State (IS) terrorist forces.

I think we need to authorize not just the use of force, we need to authorize to defeat IS, Rubio said. It continues to develop. What the president needs to come up with is a strategy, militarily, to defeat them. Which I think involves, for example, an anti-IS ground force made up of Arab armies, combined with U.S. Special Forces, particularly for tactical support, an increase in the air strikes.

But we need to authorize the use of force, Rubio added. But more importantly, we need to authorize the use of force sufficient to defeat them, to destroy them.

Megyn Kelly from Fox News noted that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., another potential Republican presidential candidate, called for a more restricted AUMF--something Rubio said he disagreed with.

If you put a geographic limit on the authorization of the use of force, youve basically told IS where they can go to hide, Rubio said. If you say, for example, you can only hit them in Iraq and Syria, they have every incentive now to move their operations and their training facilities to some other place thats not included within it.

We need to understand whats the goal here?" Rubio continued. The goal here is to defeat ISIL. If your goal is to defeat them, your goal is to defeat them no matter how long it takes, or how many places you have to go after them.

Do you think this AUMF thats going to get submitted tomorrow is going to go through, is going to pass? Kelly asked.

Well we need to see the details of it, as I said. I hope that it is an authorization sufficient that allows us to win, to defeat IS, Rubio answered. And I think when you limit it geographically, when you limit it with time constraints, youre basically telling the enemy, Were going to fight you for five years, and if in five years we havent succeeded, then were going to stop, or Were not going to hit you if you move to Libya, or if you move to Afghanistan. I dont think thats going to work if our objective here is to defeat this very dangerous group.