On a rainy day in Huffman, Texas — on the outskirts of Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, yet seemingly in the middle of nowhere — I search for the headquarters of the Global Peace Initiative (GPI). The destination plugged into my iPhone’s navigation app takes me to a cross-bearing building in an otherwise empty grass field. There’s no parking lot, but I slog through the muddy grass to the door. When nobody answers, I get back in the car and continue my search for GPI.
Minutes later, I receive a phone call from GPI’s founder, Dr. Kilari Anand (K.A.) Paul, a man who has been described as “the world’s most popular evangelist” by The New Republic and “the next Billy Graham” by the New York Times. Indeed, Paul tells me, the seemingly deserted building is GPI’s office. Quite the humble environs for a man who says his charity and peace work has reached 148 countries, hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows in need, and the millions of people who have attended his peace rallies. Global media have reported on how he convinced Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to resign and persuaded Haitian rebel leader Guy Philippe to lay down his arms. Also in Paul’s travel log: meetings with late Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
After I enter the facility with K.A. Paul, what follows is a wide-ranging interview with someone who is best described as an international man of mystery. That man is also staunchly pro-Israel, which might surprise you given the aforementioned characters he has met with. His mission last summer: defeat the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. His current mission: muster the power of America’s 90 million evangelical Christians to help defeat Democratic contender Hillary Clinton in the 2016 American presidential election.
Paul, 52, was born in India and in 1989 first came to Houston, where he lives when he isn’t busy globetrotting. He calls this year’s presidential race “the most important election of our lifetime.” Why? He fears a victory by Clinton, the front-runner, over whomever emerges from a muddled Republican field. A prominent critic of the George W. Bush administration’s war in Iraq, Paul backed President Barack Obama in the 2008 election due to Obama’s opposition of the war. After seeing Obama’s foreign policy, including secretary of state Clinton’s handling of the Libya crisis and more recently the Iran deal, Paul is singing a much different tune on the Democrats.
At the same time, his criticism of political leaders continues to transcend partisan lines. For example, he blasts Republicans and Democrats alike for the Iraq war. Former Florida governor and struggling Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, says Paul, is “paying the price today” due to the war initiated during his brother’s presidency.
“But Jeb Bush was only a governor. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq war as a senator. [Vice President] Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war as a senator….We need to elect an outsider, who never voted for the Iraq war or the Libya hell, who understands foreign policy…who can hold these people accountable — Obama and Hillary Clinton — just like Bush is held accountable because of his brother’s stupid war,” Paul says.
“Therefore,” he continues, “I’m campaigning to these 90 million evangelicals, to as many as I can reach for the next nine months, to mobilize rallies, prayer rallies, so that our next president can reverse the Iran deal and protect the interests of Americans, Israelis, and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) nations.”
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